The Gift of Art - 2018 Holiday Guide from The Artling

As we enter the festive season, we at The Artling have put together a guide of art gift ideas to help you get through any mental blocks in the lead up to December. This Christmas, give your loved ones an artwork or design piece they’ll cherish for a lifetime. Here are some contemporary art gifts we’ve carefully put together for you:

For the minimalist: 

Untitled No. 71 BY SUMIT MEHNDIRATTA

A self-taught artist, Sumit Mehndiratta uses clean minimal lines to highlight themes pertaining to nature and abstraction. In Untitled No. 71, bold, parallel lines drawn on watercolour paper with Indian black ink are made to signify the beauty of flow of sounds. Visually mesmerising, works in Mehndiratta's Untitled series are perfect gift ideas for the unfussed minimalist. 

V-bwcs18 bySEUNGYEANCHO
 

Effortless licks of paint comprise Seungyean Cho's works in monochromatic fashion, restricting the color palette to black, blue, or brown so as to explore delicate changes in one pigment. Cho's artworks cross the space between surface and space, conscious and subconscious, soul and matter, energy and vulnerability. In the space between, there are lines which have their own sound and space. 

Void Decks #4 by ERNEST WU
 

Exploring the medium of print could be might be worth your while in your search for gifts for art lovers. Prints can be effortlessly incorporated into a home, from salon style hangs to filling an empty wall, works such as Void Decks #4 by Ernest Wu immediately add to the depth of an interior space. Clean lines balanced with natural light constitute its minimalist nature, allowing for smooth visual appreciation. Its component of archival inkjet print on Canson Baryta Photographique Paper also ensures the utmost quality. 

For the bookworm: 

100 Contemporary Artists A-Z, 2 Volumes by HANS WERNER HOLZWARTH 
 

What better gift for the art-loving bookworm than a comprehensive, dual-volume edition of 100 contemporary artists by Hans Werner Holzwarth? This special two-volume edition features 100 of the most exciting artists from TASCHEN’s seminal Art at the Turn of the Millennium and the renowned Art Now! series gathered in a comprehensive survey of contemporary art at the start of the 21st century. 

Hill bookend by FABULESS
 

For the avid reader who has already racked up an extensive collection of books, Hill bookend by Fabuless solves all their book storing needs in an incredibly tasteful fashion. Made of stones sourced from mountains, Fabuless has designed these bookends by using stone sheets, overlapping in a layered fashion to embody that of a hill. Handcrafted by stone craftsman in Bangkok, this contemporary design would be a great addition to any home. 

FlipUp (M) - green by  O-URS LIVING LAB
 

For the multi-tasking reader, FlipUp(M) - green by O-URS LIVING LAB acts as not only a tableware that provides a lovely home for books, but also extends as a platform shelf to place daily goods. This freely rotating piece, available in white, black and green, is comprised of a special structure is easy to fold and flip depending on the user's needs and fancy. 

For the design-obsessed: 

Fabric Formula 1 - Tea Cup by ZHEKAI ZHANG

 

Eccentricity meets tradition in this series of ceramic works by Zhekai Zhang. In Fabric Formula, traditional craftsmanship techniques are applied to his tea sets, where he the process of slip casting is used to produce these timeless works. Suitable for outdoor use and ranging across sugar bowls, milk jugs and teapots. This series by Zhang will no doubt be the unique highlight of any table's setting. 

PENPO- Magnetic Desk Organiser-Copper by  BEYOND OBJECT

Described as a "microarchitecture built on your desktop", this desk organiser is no ordinary one. Three tubes of different materials, height and sizes with magnetic joints form a playful combination while providing maximum flexibility, elegance, and usability for any design buff out there. 

KONNECT by SSTEEL
 

Konnect takes inspiration from aluminium ceilings that are connected together to make attractive designs sans welding. This table, whilst suitable for outdoor use, is also a great gift idea for a designer due to its characteristics of assembly. Made to be put together and taken apart easily, users can even take this apart in a flat-pack fashion. With two different colours, construction is also at the helm of the user's creativity. 

For the worldly traveller: 

Neon City by LAU KING
 

Lau King's oeuvre spans photographs of cityscapes and adventure, whilst perfectly evoking the buzz that a city feels. Lau's works would heighten the excitement of any room, with its vibrant neon features accentuating the love that any city-lover has for its sights and sounds. 

Anotherplace by ANGELA ZHANG
 

For the wanderlusting traveller, Anotherplaceby Angela Zhang is a collection of visually believable landscapes and spaces that seeks to draw the viewer into their own experiences of what is being viewed. The window, as if transporting viewers into another realm, visualises the sort of fleetingness one would experience on the road. Truly stunning, this archival fine art inkjet print would immediately spark a traveller's urge to get up and hit the road on yet another adventure. 

The City by TAMARA HADDAD
 

Fascinated by large open spaces, Tamara Haddad's images of cities give us a lighter, quieter perspective of cities. Deeply influenced by architecture and photography, Tamara Haddad started painting during her studies in Advertising Art Direction. Capturing these images with her camera, she gives them deeper meaning and dimension by transposing them onto the medium of painting. This aforementioned quietness constitutes this painting as a great gift idea for a city-lover who perhaps enjoys a different take on its usual hustle and bustle. 

For the nature lover: 

Earth / Sun by KELVIN LOW
 

Kelvin Low's works are no doubt inspired by his childhood in the Malaysian Highlands. With no electricity or running water, Low was exposed to hand-made crafts, creative experiments and artistic solutions on a daily basis. As such his works reflect an abstraction of nature, having been inspired by light - firewood, candles and fireflies at night, the morning mist and clear blue skies during the day, and the stunning Malaysian golden hour in the evening. 

Crustof the polygon 01 by NORIHIKO TERAYAMA
 

Norihuko Terayama states: "Driftwood has beauty finished their roles, I wrapped it with an artificial polygon composed of straight lines of nature’s organic outside so as to form a new outer skin, so that the beauty of the shape can be understood more by contrasting the double outer skin." 

Her mode of recycling driftwood and giving it new life would be an ideal contemporary gift for any nature lover. Additionally constructed with pins and thread, the composition of the final product also hugely differs from its initial revamping of a piece of a wood, redefining it as a work of art. 

LUMINOUS BY ALLAN BOREBOR
 

Exclusive to The Artling, LUMINOUS BY Allan Borebor is an edition of 5 photography prints. Residing in the Caramoan Islands in the Philippines, it is no wonder his works are wholly inspired by the nature around him. LUMINOUS seeks to capture the ephemerality of nature. by using slow shutter speeds and long exposures, Borebor captures in his frame what one might usually constitute as a fleeting moment. 

To explore more artworks and design items in our gallery, click here.