Photographer Kevin Horan’s series Chattel poses a question: what would it look like if his ungulate neighbors came into the studio and asked to have their portraits made? The Langley, Washington-based artist captured hoofed animals (also known as ungulates) that are on and around Whidbey Island. He depicts an up-close and personal view of the creatures that are part of farmland and nursery rhymes. Horan’s subjects are set against a dark background, and his limited color palette washes the animals in warm gray tones. It gives the images a timeless feel and also highlights incredible details. Mounds of thick, textured fur and imposing antlers look unexpectedly stately, and when alone, their unique personalities shine. Horan presents these creatures in ways that we don’t normally see, and he’s removed them from places like a petting zoo to instead make them the focal point of gorgeous fine art images. (source).

Black Scalpel Cityscapes is the latest series by renowned UK artist Damien Hirst. These canvases are collages of steel surgical instruments and found metal scraps on black paint. Portrayed from a bird’s-eye view, each image casts intricate metropolitan systems and patterns into sharp, shiny relief. The series plays with themes of repetition, order, death, surgery, sterility and precision and was inspired by contemporary warfare’s “surgical strikes” and “surgical bombing” tactics, which pinpoint targets using remote aerial surveillance and mapping. (source).

Artist Ben Butler builds large-scale sculptures by assembling hundreds of pieces of wood together into odd formations. With no exact plan in mind, Butler carefully stacks the sections of aspen or cedar together one-by-one, letting the wood and the balance of each piece determine where the next piece will be placed. As the sculpture grows, the final product eventually begins to mimic natural formations like the layers of the earth or the cross-section of a canyon. Butler meticulously and precisely constructs the flowing curves and lines that result in the uniquely organic shapes. His sculptures are textured and complex, and, by alternating thickness and color, the slight variations of wood add to the tactile nature of the pieces. (source).