Before the online universe was even dreamed of, and when computers were only theoretical and powered by steam (See Babbage), when people wanted information, they needed to find it in a book. There were very learned people at the time who were often seen as human encyclopaedias, however long gone were the days when the entirety of contemporary understanding could be held in the head of one individual. With the age of professional printing in full swing, the days of the multi-volume set began to take root. One such library of information was the Naturalist’s Library by Sir William Jardine.  
 
In the typical style of the Victorian era, the illustrations are meticulously hand drawn, painted with the best inks, and are adorned with copious embellishments for reading pleasure. The entire directory covers over 1300 individual images with entire book sets dedicated to one kind of animal such as the birds or the insects. During the 19th Century, the wealthy city folk began to yearn for the lost natural world that lay beneath fortified iron and concrete. The brick buildings that billowed coalsmoke wiped away the happy shine of trees, rivers, and the reflection of the sun on lush meadows underfoot. 
 
When there was work to do and you couldn’t make a happy getaway, you could turn to your Naturalist’s Library and surround yourself with the fauna of the wilderness, whose romantic memory still lingers among the trundles of trains and the shuffling of horse drawn coach. Made using steel engravings, the prints could be reproduced indefinitely provided the original cast remained intact. The colour choices were given for each etching, so every copy retained the correct information. 
 
The book set itself is still available in paper form, for those who enjoy wildlife and the Victorian mind, and for those who like to browse or use images for their own creativity, the illustrations are on the archive website. Despite its 200 years of age, much of the work is in still valid and, when it is not, it gives a fascinating insight into the previous era.  
 
Via My Modern Met 
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Based in the UK, Tori Pounds is a fast-rising contemporary painter whose work balances gentleness with emotional depth. Her imagery is grounded in symbolic gestures of intimacy and understanding, creating a space where remembered truth blends with felt reality. Pounds’ paintings often explore the tension between body and soul, reframing everyday moments through a quietly surreal lens. Known for her dreamlike atmosphere, she frequently depicts figures who float between fantasy and realism, inviting viewers to linger in the threshold. ​

With soft tones and warm, atmospheric colour choices, Pounds encourages the eye to wander gently across the canvas, discovering depth within the glow. Her blurred edges and softened contours hint at unresolved sensations, unspoken thoughts that remain shapeless within the composition, present yet unfinished. By blending vulnerability with an inward, reflective gaze, she creates sensual, dreamlike scenes that feel both tranquil and emotionally attentive. 

Discover work by Tori Pounds on Art of Noma

and Artsy
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Aykut Aydoğdu is a well‑known and exceptionally talented digital surrealist whose perceptive, mind‑bending imagery has earned him international admiration. With radiant symbolism and enchanting, dreamlike narratives, Aydoğdu presents distortions that resonate with cultural memory, universal archetype, and modern storytelling. His portfolio moves fluidly between sombre, cool atmospheres and vibrant, vivid compositions, offering admirers a multitude of muses and suggestive emotional pathways. 

Often centred on a solitary figure, Aydoğdu’s work garnishes its subjects with fantastical, counter‑intuitive alterations and paradoxes. Themes such as nature blooming from flesh or faces fragmented into compartments create magical metaphors that resemble the human condition in thought‑provoking ways. Each flourish and misshape crafts a winding emotional story; like bunting in the wind, every element celebrates our collective dreamscape and our fascination with beautiful falsification. ​

As the tension between reality and the impossible plays out in dualistic arenas, Aydoğdu creates a unique meeting place for ideas that would never be visible in the everyday workings of reality. By signalling new dimensions and unlikely combinations, he offers a space where inventive ideas and creative boundlessness can flourish, seeds that go on to grow in the areas governed by formality and reason. 

​Like what you see? Visit his shop
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The recent passing of Luísa Cunha at the age of 77 invites reflection on what she gave to the world. She led a thoroughly artistic life, each era and direction forming part of a now‑complete narrative. Her first taste of public recognition came in the early 1990s, while completing a degree in sculpture, a discipline she would later teach, nurturing a lifelong love for material form. 
 
Born in 1949, among the Baby Boom generation, Luísa Cunha developed a fascination with language, how we perceive it and how we use it. This curiosity shaped much of her work. Space, sound, and form became philosophical instruments through which she explored meaning beyond the educated or habitual idea. 
 
One of her most memorable pieces, Do What You Have to Do, featured two suspended speakers repeating the phrase in slightly different tones and rhythms. The experience of standing in that space, hearing the voices until their meaning dissolved into abstraction, invited eccentric and liberating thought. 
 
Cunha’s art often blurred the line between authority and resistance. By loosening our mechanised connection to something as commanding as language, she allowed visitors to feel detached from systems they once obeyed instinctively. Her work reminds us that frameworks and hierarchies exist only through shared compliance. 
 
Known for saying her art was about observation rather than invention, Luísa Cunha offered a way to test the boundaries of conformity and discover which are worth maintaining. By letting others perceive the subtle realities that had dawned on her, she expanded human vision to include the quiet entropy of dogma, a space where perception itself becomes art. 
 
 Via ArtNet
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Poverty doesn’t always mean money. Of course, having little cash to your name and no clear way of making more is the version we usually picture. But poverty can also be a lack of something else entirely: friends, culture, adventure, respect, love, progress. During the Cold War, East Germany lived with a different kind of scarcity. One half of Berlin was awash with pop music, glossy magazines, and the early digital sparkle of Western consumer culture. The other half existed behind a wall of restrictions. The state tried to provide, but the goods were famously poor quality and contact with the West was tightly controlled and often illicit. Add to this the constant hum of surveillance, and even your private life felt like something you didn’t fully own. 

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Art in East Germany was not an easy thing to make. Content was scrutinised, and materials were often scarce, expensive, or simply unavailable. You could buy paint, brushes, paper, and so on, but supply was limited and quality inconsistent. For many, feeding the family came before feeding the canvas. This is where true creativity reveals itself. When the usual tools are out of reach, when ideas and influences arrive only in fragments, and when you’re forced to stretch every resource to its limit, you begin to upcycle, maximise, and—heaven forbid, capitalise on whatever you do have. 
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Because of this unusual convergence of pressures and possibilities, East German art has rightly become its own classification. It developed under conditions that produced a distinct aesthetic, shaped by scarcity, surveillance, and selective exposure to global trends. One artist from this period is Gabriele Stötzer. She recalls the days when she would buy Super‑8 film rather than sausages, choosing creativity over comfort. Now 73, she is presenting a prolific selection of works in a major new exhibition. 


Dabei sein und nicht schweigen— Show Up and Don’t Be Quiet is now running at Berlin’s Martin Gropius Bau. Visitors will find 150 pieces by Stötzer, each one charged with the desire for freedom, choice, and personal autonomy. The exhibition takes its name from a book she wrote during the years of the Wall. After the expatriation of dissident folk singer Wolf Biermann in 1976, the GDR launched a wave of repression. Stötzer was arrested during this crackdown and sentenced to a year in prison on charges of “anti‑state agitation”. Her book documents that traumatic experience from the inside. 


Today, Stötzer is recognised as a vital eyewitness to history and a courageous participant in the slow, stubborn work of change. Many dissident artists of her era ended up in the West. Some were expelled; some permitted to leave; some fled. Stötzer recalls turning down the chance to emigrate, refusing to give the GDR an excuse to demonise her. By staying, creating, and insisting on her voice within the system that tried to silence it, she positioned herself as both artist and witness, someone whose work carries not only aesthetic value but historical weight. 
 
​Via The Guardian
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