Aurelia Butler

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    This Is Not a Gun: An Interview with Cara Levine Explores Collective Trauma, Grief, and the Power of Ritual

    
    Art

    #clay
    #social justice
    #wood

    November 16, 2021
    Paulette Beete

    All images © Cara Levine, shared with permission
    In December 2016, Harper’s Magazine published a list of more than 20 objects that had been “mistaken for guns during shootings of civilians by police in the United States since 2001.” Artist Cara Levine found herself stunned then grief-stricken by the items, prompting her to launch the multi-faceted This Is Not a Gun project, which she discusses in the latest interview supported by Colossal Members.
    I needed to slow down and understand what I was looking at because I don’t want to live in a world where someone can be killed eating a sandwich. We are getting this information so fast. I decided first to carve. I thought, “If I can carve a sandwich, somewhere in the process, from block of wood to sandwich I can understand how someone might think this is a gun. If I just spend all the time understanding its form, maybe I’ll understand how it was mistaken as a gun.”
    As Levine explains in her conversation with Colossal contributor Paulette Beete, she wasn’t naïve about gun violence or how often it occurred in Black communities at the hands of police. What she found unfathomable, however, was how these everyday objects could be interpreted as threats. So she turned to her art as a way to understand the seemingly understandable. In this interview,  Levine speaks about how This Is Not A Gun has informed and evolved her practice, her understanding of both individual and collective grief and trauma, and the importance of ritual.

    A This Is Not A Gun workshop

    #clay
    #social justice
    #wood

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  • 188 Shares139 Views

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    Social Issues and the Climate Crisis Intertwine in Subversive Crocheted Works by Jo Hamilton

    
    Art
    Craft

    #crochet
    #landscapes
    #plastic
    #portraits
    #yarn

    November 15, 2021
    Grace Ebert

    “I Crochet Portland” (2006-2009), mixed crocheted yarn, 63 x 114 inches. All images © Jo Hamilton, shared with permission
    From a mix of wool fibers and yarn made from plastic waste, Scottish artist Jo Hamilton crochets large-scale portraits and architectural landscapes delineated with dangling threads. Her knotted pieces push the boundaries of art and craft traditions, bringing the two together in subversive portrayals of powerful women and metropolises marred by production. Unraveling at the edges, the textured works reflect on interlocking issues like unchecked capitalism, social disparities, and the increasingly urgent climate crisis.
    All of the materials Hamilton uses are recycled, whether sourced from estate sales and resalers or created in studio. A few years ago, she started turning grocery bags, videotapes, and other household items into skeins of yarn-like threads—the artist shares some of this process on Instagram—as a way to reduce her impact on the environment, explaining:
    We tend to glorify nature as an eternal and everlasting idea, separate from ourselves and our real-life actions. We’ve held on tightly to these ideas during the last few decades in the throes of late capitalism and globalization, and if we don’t change our thinking, policies and behavior immediately it will be too late. So I channeled my anxieties about over-production, pollution, and climate change into my work, using plastic in some of the works in contrast with the yarn.
    If you’re in Portland, stop by Russo Lee Gallery to see Hamilton’s most recent works as part of her solo show Transitory Trespass, which closes on November 27.

    “Cherry Steel Above and Below” (2017), mixed crocheted yarn, 68 x 122 inches
    “Shinig Mountain Eclipse.” Photo by John Clark
    Left: “Masked Metamorhic.” Right: “Masked Marbled.” Photos by John Clark
    “Death Star PDX” (2018), mixed crocheted yarn, 45 x 52 inches. Photo by John Clark
    “Isaac Montalvo” (2008), mixed yarn, 23 x 22 inches
    “Head & Neck Dietician” (2016), mixed crocheted yarn, 29 x 27 inches
    “Groucho Gia” (2013), mixed crocheted yarn, 51 x 36 inches
    Hamilton with a 2019 outdoor crocheted mural project on SE Foster Road in Portland. Photo by Kevin McConnell
    Hamilton with a 2019 outdoor crocheted mural project on SE Foster Road in Portland. Photo by Kevin McConnell

    #crochet
    #landscapes
    #plastic
    #portraits
    #yarn

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  • 175 Shares169 Views

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    A ‘Staircase to Heaven’ Installation Ascends into the Sky as a Trippy Optical Illusion

    
    Art

    #installation
    #public art
    #sculpture
    #site-specific
    #stairs
    #steel
    #video

    November 12, 2021
    Grace Ebert

    All images © Strijdom van der Merwe, shared with permission
    South African artist Strijdom van der Merwe’s deceptive “Staircase to Heaven” sculpture is designed to make you wonder. When viewed straight on, the towering optical illusion appears to ascend into the sky at an incline, although the 4.5-meter-tall work actually lies on a flat plane. Van der Merwe partnered with Taiwanese artist Chou Sheng-hsien to create the trippy sculpture for the Nanhui Art Project in Taiwan, which commissioned 14 public works to be installed throughout Taitung County.
    Built with steel square tubing that weighs about 240 kilograms, “Staircase to Heaven” is modeled after van der Merwe’s 2016 project, “Sculptures on the Cliff.” For more of the artist’s site-specific works and sprawling land art, check out his site. (via Laughing Squid)

    [embedded content]

    #installation
    #public art
    #sculpture
    #site-specific
    #stairs
    #steel
    #video

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  • 150 Shares189 Views

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    Impasto Layers Blur Portraits and Landscapes in Li Songsong’s Fragmented Oil Paintings

    
    Art

    #China
    #impasto
    #memory
    #oil painting
    #painting
    #portraits

    November 11, 2021
    Grace Ebert

    “I Am What I Am” (2020), 120 x 100 centimeters. All images © Li Songsong, shared with permission
    Chinese artist Li Songsong (previously) obscures portraits and wider landscapes with thick dabs of oil paint. His textured, impasto works are based on found photographs or imagined scenes, and each conveys a narrative tied to ordinary moments or a broader shared history. Varying the extent of distortion in every piece, Songsong tells Colossal that interrogating personal identity is at the center of his practice. The “cultural and historical aspects are related to China, and the language and expressions are my own,” he explains.
    Songsong’s recent works include a tender scene with an officer and his dog, a portrait of a hopeful pilot, and a panoramic shot featuring a crowd with hundreds of anonymous faces. The richly layered pieces speak to the haziness and fragmentary nature of memories and stories, especially those interpreted from a distance, and come into focus when viewed farther back with a squint.
    Based in Beijing, Songsong is currently working on a new series of works, which you can follow on his site.

    “Blondi” (2019), 210 x 180 centimeters
    “Blondi” (2019), 210 x 210 centimeters
    “Tea for Two” (2020), 210 x 210 centimeters
    “No More Tears” (2020), 100 x 100 centimeters
    “You Haven’t Looked at Me that Way in Years” (2020), 170 x 280 centimeters
    “Three Decades” (2019), 210 x 420 centimeters

    #China
    #impasto
    #memory
    #oil painting
    #painting
    #portraits

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  • 200 Shares149 Views

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    A 14-Foot Box Truck Transforms into an Intimate Glimpse of Domestic Life in Swoon’s Mobile Sculpture

    
    Art

    #family
    #installation
    #painting
    #sculpture
    #trucks

    November 10, 2021
    Grace Ebert

    All images by Lauren Silberman, © Swoon, shared with permission
    Exploring trauma and addiction through intricate paper cuttings, pasted murals, and mythical stop-motion animations is at the heart of Caledonia Curry’s practice, and the Connecticut-born artist, who works as Swoon (previously), extends that approach in a mobile sculpture that peers into the intimacy of family life. Produced last year in collaboration with PBS American Portrait, “The House Our Family Built” transforms a 14-foot box truck into a roving domestic scene comprised of a cab cloaked in patterned wallpaper and a trailer split open to reveal a house-like environment.
    Within the vehicle are objects synonymous with home life, including framed photos, children’s toys, and furniture, while a fence lines the perimeter in front of the truck. A family of two-dimensional painted figures from multiple generations occupies both the indoor and outdoor spaces, and  Swoon says the outdoor installation “asks viewers to consider the legacy of ancestral histories—whether through traditions, trauma, or repeated narratives—and the ways in which they inform how we understand and talk about ourselves.”
    “The House Our Family Built” is on view this week at Nasher Sculpture Center as part of the Dallas Art Fair, and you can follow Swoon through the making-of process on PBS. Find an archive of her imaginative projects on her site, YouTube, and Instagram. (via Artnet)

    #family
    #installation
    #painting
    #sculpture
    #trucks

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  • 188 Shares109 Views

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    Artificial Organisms: Shimmering Digital Creatures Undulate and Pulse with Light in Maxim Zhetskov’s New Film

    
    Animation
    Art

    #digital
    #short film
    #video

    November 9, 2021
    Grace Ebert

    [embedded content]
    In “Artificial Organisms,” Russian director Maxim Zhestkov (previously) enlivens machine intelligence to create palpitating marine organisms that radiate with vibrant bands of light. The hulking, life-like specimens, which are comprised of countless individual spheres, are presented floating in undulating masses or enveloping a stark white structure in groups evocative of a coral reef. Each piece fuses the artificial and organic, producing “a bizarre world of mesmerizing digital creatures,” Zhestkov says. “A combination of biological symmetry and impeccable digital matter, they are a representation of budding artificial intelligence.” To watch more of the director’s projects, head to Vimeo, Instagram, and Behance.

    #digital
    #short film
    #video

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  • 225 Shares179 Views

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    A New Book Flies Through the Vast World of Birds from Art and Design to History and Ornithology

    
    Art
    History
    Illustration
    Photography

    #birds
    #books

    November 9, 2021
    Grace Ebert

    Ernst Haeckel, Trochilidae – Kolibris, from Kunstformen der Natur, 1904. Chromolithograph, 36 × 26 cm / 14 × 10 ¼ in. Picture credit: Kunstformen der Natur
    Bird: Exploring the Winged World is an extensive celebration of feathered creatures across thousands of years of art, science, and popular culture. Published by Phaidon, the stunning, 352-page volume compiles works from hundreds of artists, illustrators, photographers, and designers—including Lorna Simpson (previously), Nick Cave (previously), Ernst Haeckel (previously), and Florentijn Hofman (previously)—who choose ostriches, flamingos, and other avians as their central motifs. Each spread connects two distinct works from different periods, pairing anatomical renderings with James Audubon’s illustrations and striking contemporary portraits with vintage advertisements.
    In addition to hundreds of images, the forthcoming tome features an introduction by Katrina van Grouw and information about urban birding experiences and taxonomies. Copies are available from Bookshop on November 10.

    Allen & Ginter, Birds of the Tropics, 1889. Chromolithograph, 7.3 × 8.3 cm / 2 7/8 × 3 ¼ in, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Picture credit: The Metropolitan Museum of Art: The Jefferson R.Burdick Collection, Gift of Jefferson R. Burdick
    Elizabeth Butterworth, Lear’s Macaw, 2005. Gouache, ink, and pencil on paper, 25 × 34 cm / 9 ¼ × 13 3/8 in, Private collection. Picture credit: © Elizabeth Butterworth
    Florentijn Hofman, Rubber Duck, 2013. PVC, H. 16.5 m / 21 ft, temporary installation, Hong Kong. Picture credit: All Rights Reserved, courtesy Studio Florentijn Hofman
    Matt Stuart, Trafalgar Square, 2004. Photograph, dimensions variable. Picture credit: © Matt Stuart
    John James Audubon (engraved by Robert Havell), American Flamingo, from The Birds of America, double elephant folio edition, 1838. Hand-coloured etching and aquatint, 97 × 65 cm / 38 ¼ × 25 5/8 in. Picture credit: National Gallery of Art, Washington DC: Gift of Mrs. Walter B. James
    Oiva Toikka, Birds by Toikka, 1972–present. Mouth-blown glass, dimensions variable, Iittala collection. Picture credit: All rights reserved by Fiskars Finland Oy Ab/Photographer Timo Junttila, Designer Oiva Toikka
    Andy Holden and Peter Holden, Natural Selection, 2018. Mixed media, Temporary installation at Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, UK. Picture credit: Andy Holden/Photograph by Alison Bettles

    #birds
    #books

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  • 125 Shares159 Views

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    Ornate Painted Patterns Conceal Photographer Cecilia Paredes Against Textile Backdrops

    
    Art
    Photography

    #camouflage
    #paint
    #pattern
    #self-portrait
    #textiles

    November 8, 2021
    Grace Ebert

    “Blue Flight” (2021). All images courtesy of Ruiz-Healy Art, shared with permission
    Peruvian artist Cecilia Paredes continues her ongoing series of camouflaged self-portraits with deceptive new works that leave only her hair, eyes, and ears untouched. Set against lavish backdrops printed with birds in shades of blue, floral motifs, and ornate flourishes, Paredes paints her skin and positions herself in a precise alignment with the chosen pattern, disappearing among the colorful landscapes. Each work, which the Lima-born artist refers to as “photo performances,” considers how individual identities are informed by natural environments and the broader cultural milieu. Explore an archive of Paredes’s lavish portraits at Ruiz-Healy Art and on Artsy.

    “The Unseen Glance” (2021)
    “Paradise Hands IV” (2020)
    “The Whisper” (2021)

    “Magnolia Stories” (2020)

    #camouflage
    #paint
    #pattern
    #self-portrait
    #textiles

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