20 Things We Found On The Internet This May
The Welcome team's monthly discoveries
Written by Mikail Haroon (@mvkail) / Curated by the Welcome team
This is our fourth iteration of Monthly Discoveries, a series in which the Welcome team compiles and curates creativity that caught our eye this month. (Paid subs can see past discoveries here, here, and here.)
As always, our May Discoveries spanned a wide spectrum: long-lost witch house tracks, Hello Kitty installations in a cathedral built in 1096, face tattoos of micro-brands, aluminum foil rats, slime-covered dolphin-human hybrids, fox-collar bombers, oil-painted highway hallucinations, mysterious leather furniture, and much more.
These lists are hard-won at the cost of countless screentime hours, so we hope you find something worthwhile in the selection. Happy discovering.
Cute but Psycho by Andrej Bestak and Anja Leko
Andrej Beštak and Anja Leko are the Croatian artist duo behind a bizarre human-dolphin hybrid sculpture. Eternally coated in a slick layer of wet-looking slime, the dolphin bares its jagged teeth while a lock of sleek black hair falls across its face, almost covering one eye. According to the accompanying text, the piece functions as a commentary on looksmaxxing culture, the endless pursuit of shinier hair, a perfect smile, and increasingly hollow cheekbones. One particularly memorable line from the description reads: “Who smiles all the time? Only weirdoes and dolphins.”
Close Proximity by Tim Whelan
LA-based artist Tim Whelan is an illustrator and graphic designer whose diverse practice includes digital illustration, calligraphy, quick sketches, analog work, graphic design, and motion graphics. His latest painting depicts a scene that feels as though it could have been lifted straight from the newest season of Euphoria: a paranoid man with oversized, anime-esque eyes lies on a floral couch, tightly embracing his blonde lover while clutching a gun in his hand. In the comments, Whelan cites photographer Stephen Shore, the iconic 1970s chronicler of American life whose colorful images transformed everyday banality into something unique and coursing with life.
Red Dragon by Salem
SALEM, who has not released music since 2020’s Fires in Heaven, dropped Red Dragon, a project compiling 31 tracks that had never been officially released on streaming. There is some controversy with the band’s former vocalist Heather, who allegedly did not clear her vocals. SALEM and Supreme also dropped a small collection this month featuring New Era snapbacks, half-zip stadium jackets, zip-up hooded sweatshirts, rhinestone-studded graphic tees, and hospital grippy socks.
Tattoos by Hector Gordo Peña
Hector Gordo Peña is a tattoo artist from Houston, Texas. His newest face tattoo creation is a dense cluster of seemingly unrelated, colorful micro-designs: half of a Chicago Bulls logo, Hello Kitty holding a Glock, an Ace of Spades, the Freemason emblem, Ace Hardware, Fortnite V-Bucks, Chick-fil-A, a honey dipper, the Trix Rabbit, a king bee, Valium, a Rolex crown, the old OxyContin logo, a hen, and several others. The tattoo is, somewhat surprisingly, pretty hard. It’s also exceptionally well executed, with intricate detailing that holds up despite the tiny scale of each logo. Peña later posted another video showing the man returning to add more tattoos to the left side of his face. The new work is only briefly visible, but Peña promised to send over a better photo once the mysterious man (who Peña said in the comments is a crackhead) makes his return.
“The Light Comes from All Sides” by Lily Bunney
London-based artist Bunney conducted workshops with two local schools to create a curtain of strung beads resembling Hello Kitty inside of Norwich Cathedral (built in 1096), intended as a contemporary reinterpretation of stained-glass windows. The beaded curtain employs a pointillist technique rooted in a 19th-century color theory that explores how the human eye processes light, with thousands of individual beads visually blending together to create an effect similar to mixed paint. The works are on view through October.
Lourdes’s fox bombers by Noah Lugh Brown
Created by designer Noah Lugh Brown, the Lourdes’s Fox Bomber reimagines the classic 1950s American MA-1 bomber silhouette. It comes in two traditional colorways, army green and black, with a real fox draped around the collar. (The product description notes: “All foxes vary in color.”) Brown has created custom pieces for Playboi Carti and 2hollis in recent years, including a custom white stretch-lamb zip hoodie for Carti and a white Napoleon-style jacket-and-pants set for 2hollis.
The Cats and the Rats by Dean Millen
This month, Millen showcased a handful of the aluminum foil sculptures at MoMA PS1. Our favorite is titled, “The Cats and the Rats”, a collection of sculptures depicting two of NYC’s most ubiquitous street creatures. Millen’s love for creating aluminum foil creatures dates back to when he was 4 years old, where he created his own toys after his father took away his store-bought ones.
Thankful Carts by Jessica Song
NYC based artist Jessica Song posted an image of a minor design detail on the shopping carts at Home Depot: a cursive calligraphy “Thankful” on the handle. The design accent resonated with us. Striking in its simplicity, and remarkably ignored by most visitors, it’s an excellent example of quality design that goes unnoticed in public settings, which is something we’re very interested in. This month, at NYC Design Week, Song presented these simple yet provocative maple wood clocks, which replicate the texture of a malleable parchment paper, turning like the page of a book.
Cosmic Theater by Bella Luz
Bella Luz’s angelic works are soft, luminous, and uncluttered. “Cosmic Theater”, a self-portrait and perhaps our favorite of her works, depicts Luz lying down as sunlight glows through her bedsheets. Upon closer inspection, viewers can discover three miniature oases tucked within the scene, each representing a different biome: sea, forest, and waterfall. A throughline across her practice is a dreamlike translucency that blends and juxtaposes textures. Like dreams themselves, her images resist clearly defined boundaries and coherent logic, allowing disparate elements to coexist in harmony.
“R.I.P Peace” music video by Liim
Cosigned by Tyler, the Creator last year, who described his music as “a cross between Stereolab and Max B. That’s not even half of it,” Liim is a Brooklyn-based rapper who recently wrapped up a stint opening for Freddie Gibbs on tour. His track “R.I.P Peace,” accompanied by a video directed by 900DKID, has been blowing up, with the video in particular propelling the song’s popularity. The video pays homage to “Champagne Coast”:, the iconic music video by Blood Orange that drew inspiration from a blend of late-20th-century interior design catalogs, the work of Ed Ruscha, and early-2000s virtual reality aesthetics. Director Wollens reportedly spent hours scanning interior design clippings at the library to construct the video’s psychedelic, collage-like set.
You’re halfway through our monthly discoveries. To access the rest of the list, as well as all of our past and future discoveries (and much more), become a paid subscriber to Welcome Magazine