The current show at TAG is IF YOU BLINK, YOU’LL MISS IT by Quim Tarrida — which is funny because Karl and I just happened to be walking down Melrose — and had we not been looking to the right, we would sadly have missed this show and gallery.

Toy Art Gallery as described on its website:

The Toy Art Gallery is the first gallery of its kind to showcase and consult on high-end art toys and sculptures. Our goal is to showcase exciting, original, and new artists who use figurative sculpture as their primary medium of expression. We also focus on showing, collecting, and producing high end, limited edition, custom, and life-size toy sculptures. Our showroom and gallery is located in Hollywood, California.

One of our specialties is to provide availability on rare and desirable toys, life-size figures, bronze sculptures, and one-of-a-kind custom figures created by some of the leading artists/toy designers from around the world. We also have an incredible selection of aftermarket fine art originals and prints created by the leading pop surrealist and low brow artists working today. Our aim is to provide the best works from these artists at a fair market value and priced to fit a variety of budgets.

Check out the rest of our DesignerGrill photos here!

And for much more toy art fun — click on these:
Toy Art Gallery website.
Toy Art Gallery blog.
Follow @ToyArtGallery on Twitter.
Like Toy Art Gallery on Facebook.

*Special thanks to Connell Little, our enthusiastic TAG tour guide.

Photo: ©kHyal™ 2011

Pulse Contemporary Art Fair Miami  at the Ice Palace Studios during Art Basel Miami Beach 2011.

Check out the rest of the photos here.

Photos: ©kHyal™ 2011

I can’t imagine how many people cover the main event at Art Basel Miami Beach as reporters or photojournalists. The volume of humans that track through the aisles with cameras and notepads — desperate to record and hold these moments — is staggering.

In the earlier years, I would try to capture as much as I could. This year I just grabbed a few snaps of some of my faves — a handful of images from the many thousands.

The rest are over here.

Photos: ©kHyal™ 2011

Wynwood Walls has brought some of the best street artists from around the globe to Miami during Art Basel Miami Beach.

Check out some of our photo documentation from 2011 here.

Photos: ©kHyal™ 2011

Last year during Art Basel Miami Beach, we had just been admiring and photographing a mural by Lister in Wynwood, when we turned a corner to find him working and had a nice early morning conversation, before most people were awake.

This year, it was later in the day, and it was Sego we ran into. I had just photographed his mural at Wynwood Walls behind the Wynwood Kitchen & Bar, when we walked down the street and started a conversation with several muralists, one of which was Sego. I love his bold, distinct, colorful characters and signature line work. He had another large mural covering the expanse of two walls behind an Italian restaurant in the heart of Wynwood. Stunning work.

There is a good interview with Sego from 2009 at Art Asylum Boston.

You can follow him on twitter at @SegoOvbal.

Or, check out his blog here.

For a few more photos, check out our flickr set.

Photos: 1–2) Wynwood murals 3) Sego on the right — ©kHyal™ 2011

*Note: I learned after writing this that the artist Saner collaborated with Sego on the photos above. He is not in the photo above, but there is an excellent video on the project with interviews of Sego and Saner here. You can visit Saner’s website here.

Greg Haberny knocked it out of the park again — this time at Aqua Art in South Beach via Like the Spice Gallery where the eye-popping controversy of glittering truths exploded on four walls — speckled with red dots indicating many sales.

Check out more images from the show —> here.

Visit Haberny’s website —> suckerchump.com.

Photo: Greg Haberny, America The Beautiful 2011, Mixed media on wood 23 x 30 in / 58.4 x 76.2 cm ©kHyal™ 2011

Get the full scoop on the event here.

Check out the rest of the photos here.

Photo: ©kHyal™ 2011

Last week Karl and I visited The House of Christian Dior’s first ever pop-up shop in Miami’s Design District during Art Basel Miami Beach. This is Dior’s first pop-up shop and first collaboration with an artist. Featuring vibrant camouflage patterning with graphic contrast stitching and edge glow acrylic accents — the new line of bags were sculptural marvels. The 3,000+ square foot shop included a video wall, nail salon and outside food truck serving French pastries and coffee.

The shop opened on November 28th and is up for two weeks. Hurry on over — or check out more photos here.

Photo: ©kHyal™

It’s hard not to love the work of Friends With You — the Miami collective formed in 2002 by Samuel Borkson and Arturo Sandoval III. Their exhibit in Wynwood during Art Basel Miami keeps the cute momentum going — along with the signature simplicity that appeals to viewers of all ages.

The exhibition is on view Dec 1 – Jan 28

3930 NE 2nd Avenue
Suite 202
Miami FL 33137

For more information on the exhibit contact:
eva.seta@friendswithyou.com | 305.722.8478

Photos: ©kHyal™ 2011

I’ve repurposed and restyled apparel for decades — and made clothes out of other clothes for since the early 2000s — but after completing the Sustainable Design Entrepreneur program at FIT this year, I’m even more aware of waste. Coupling that with the fact that since I was a child I have considered myself a kinetic sculpture on which to drape statements of my personal vision — these recent character design pieces feel like a place I can truly call home.

My character dress came from a batch of business cards I printed for my newly launched MegaGlam illustration website. The fronts came out fine but the type bled on the back and I considered them unusable. Some OCD hole-punching and a boatload of mini black safety pins — and voilà — instant fashion and a little sigh of relief from our overstuffed landfill.

Making the dress got me amped on other ideas, so I created two prototypes using thrift store jackets and reused a vinyl promotional banner with more of my characters by cutting out key pieces and machine appliqueing the designs.

Photos: 1–3) Karl Heine; 4) kHyal™; 5) Tyler Jayson  — ©2011