Thank You Internet... for the dirtiest art you've ever seen
This artist will convince you to never wash your car again. That and more in this week's dose of eye candy
Phil Leung curates the best of the web for Exhibitionists. Click your way through the five best things he saw online this week.
Starry Night Trek?
If you ever need to decorate a crappy dorm room, this is the Etsy page for you. New York artist Aja Trier creates reproductions of Van Gogh's "Starry Night" — that staple of university poster sales since 1889. But Trier inserts pop-culture icons into every painting for maximum low-culture appeal. Phil's fave is SpongeBob SquarePants, though there are plenty more unlicensed characters to choose from — Grumpy Cat, Pikachu, Totoro, even Garfield and Odie.
This house is a love letter to Hamilton, Ont.
It's possible to find beauty everywhere — even a broken-down shack in Hamilton, Ont. Artist Laura Hollick lives and works in the city, and there's an abandoned house across the street from her studio. Saddened to watch it fall further into disrepair, she decided to turn it into a work of art, covering the neighbourhood eyesore with multi-coloured panels. The result is a total transformation. Locals now call the spot "Rainbow House," and Hollick recently shared her story with CBC Hamilton, explaining why the project is a way of saying thanks to her community.
This artist is celebrating her grandmother's life by making hundreds of paper butterflies
When her grandmother died, Maria A. Aristidou, began making paper butterflies. Now, she has more than 800, and as the artist told Bored Panda, creating them is like therapy. "I was free to cry, smile and remember every moment shared with her," she wrote. Recently the artist, who lives in Cyprus, used her butterfly collection to create an installation that memorializes not just her grandmother, but her late father and grandfather as well.
Dirt so good
Check out Nikita Golubev's Instagram, and you'll never wash your car again. The Russian artist, who works under the pseudonym Pro Boy Nick, uses Moscow's grimiest cars and trucks as his canvas, leaving realistic drawings in the dirt — life-like owls, crocodiles, gorillas and other things too that are too awesome to ever scrub off.
If you want to make a viral dance video, you'd better be older than 60
Like the "Uptown Funk" couple and the waltzing gas station lady and the "Blue Suede Shoes" granny before them, Phil guarantees that this German duo will "swing dance their way into your heart." So in case you missed it, watch as Nellia Ehrentraut, 64, and husband Dietmar, 70, slay this "boogie woogie" dance routine. It got international attention earlier this month.
Watch Exhibitionists on demand now! New episodes air Sundays at 3:30 p.m. (4 p.m. NT) on CBC Television with repeats Friday nights at 12:30am (1am NT).
Send Phil a tip for next week's Thank You Internet! Tweet him at @PhilLeungFilms.