Aurelia Butler

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    Sprawling Paper-Pulp Mobiles by Yuko Nishikawa Suspend Whimsically Colored Pods in the Air

    
    Art

    #installation
    #paper

    August 31, 2021
    Grace Ebert

    All images © Yuko Nishikawa, shared with permission
    Hanging from the ceiling like candy-colored droplets, the paper-pulp mobiles by Yuko Nishikawa turn a stark gallery into a whimsical dreamscape. The Brooklyn-based artist fashions wide, sloping vessels and punctured rings from recycled packages, old diaries, sketches, and other waste materials, forming individual pods that attach to sprawling metal armature. Ephemeral in material and design, each piece is created with the intention that it will be unassembled and reverted back to its muddled form for resculpting.
    With a background in ceramics, Nishikawa switched to paper last year because it’s lightweight, doesn’t require firing in electricity-dependent kilns, and is more durable once dry. The pastels and subtle hues she gravitates toward are inspired by the natural pigments of wool yarn, although she likens her process to mixing paints, saying:
    I blended blue paper pulp and red paper pulp, and a bit of yellow paper pulp to make a muted purple paper clay. I combined them at their different blended stages, too ,to make varying textures and color effects. Mushy pulps would make homogeneous colors, while crumbly pulps would have a stippled effect. Finely blended pulps would become a smoother surface when dry, while coarser pulps would become bumpier like oatmeal cookies.
    Designed as an invitation to imagine new ways of finding joy, Nishikawa’s works all derive from the idea of piku piku, “a Japanese onomatopoeia that describes involuntary movements caused by unexpected contact,” she writes. “I want my work to make you feel piku piku, tickling something deep down inside you.”
    This fall, Nishikawa will open a solo show at Kishka Gallery & Library in White River Junction, Vermont, and will also have work at Main Window Dumbo. Some of her mobiles are currently available through Room68, where she’ll present a new collection later this year. Until then, see more of her pieces and works-in-progress on Instagram.

    #installation
    #paper

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    Interview: Sara Hagale Discusses the Therapeutic Nature of Her Practice and Why She Doesn’t Think About Authenticity

    
    Art
    Colossal
    Illustration

    #drawing
    #emotions
    #interview

    August 31, 2021
    Grace Ebert

    “Walkerings.” All images © Sara Hagale, shared with permission
    Considering their undeniable relatability, it’s no surprise that Sara Hagale’s witty, whimsical, and at times anxious drawings have amassed an incredible following in recent years, a topic she discusses in a new interview supported by Colossal Members. Her body of work is broad and idiosyncratic, spanning fanciful bouquets of leggy flowers to smudged self-portraits to quirky characters struggling through life, and it offers an array of emotional and aesthetic nuances that are unique to the artist.
    I don’t have to feel goofy all the time in order to still be me. And I’m allowed to draw something that feels right to me in that moment even if it doesn’t match up perfectly with the other work I produce.
    In a conversation with Colossal managing editor Grace Ebert, Hagale discusses using her practice to process her emotions in real-time, the impossibility of authenticity, and why she prefers to work with limitations.

    #drawing
    #emotions
    #interview

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  • 188 Shares99 Views

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    Entangled Figures Grasp a Small Footbridge Above a Philadelphia Street in Miguel Horn’s New Installation

    
    Art

    #aluminum
    #installation
    #public art
    #sculpture
    #site-specific
    #street art

    August 31, 2021
    Grace Ebert

    All images courtesy of Streets Dept, shared with permission
    Clinging to a concrete footbridge in Philadelphia are two groups of figures in tangled clusters. The striking installation is attached to a 20-foot walkway arched over 1200 Cuthbert Street in City Center and is the latest work of artist Miguel Horn, who is known for his fragmented sculptures and large-scale installations comprised of CNC-cut plates. Each of the forms in “ContraFuerte” features topographic layers constructed with thousands of stacked aluminum pieces—Horn shares much of his process from initial sketches to clay prototypes on Instagram—which fuse together to create figures that appear in the midst of struggle. Similar to the artist’s previous works that directly respond to their location, the oversized piece is designed to “grapple with the task to sustain, or raise up a bridge that spans the width of the street,” Horn says. (via Streets Dept)

    #aluminum
    #installation
    #public art
    #sculpture
    #site-specific
    #street art

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  • 150 Shares199 Views

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    Geometric Shapes and Three-Dimensional Illusions Disrupt Existing Architecture in Peeta’s Anamorphic Murals

    
    Art

    #murals
    #optical illusion
    #public art
    #street art

    August 30, 2021
    Grace Ebert

    Milan (2021). All images © Peeta, shared with permission
    Italian artist Peeta (previously) uses the interplay between shadow and light to turn flat, monochromatic planes into deceptive three-dimensional murals. His large-scale works sever residences and public buildings with curved ribbons, angular shapes, and geometric blocks of color that appear to jump out from or be built directly into the existing architecture. Spanning locations across Europe, the spray-painted works shown here are some of the most recent additions to Peeta’s extensive archive of abstracted illusions, which shift in perspective depending on the viewer’s positions.
    In September, the prolific artist will travel to Fidenza Village in Fidenza, Italy, for his next project, and you can follow progress on that piece on Instagram. Until then, check out his shop for prints, posters, and the sprawling fragmented sculptures that inform his murals.

    Neuekirchen, Germany (2020)
    Inforooms Padova, Italy (2021)
    University of Padua, Italy (2021)
    Grenobles, France (2021)
    Dan Helder, The Netherlands (2020)
    Florence (2020)
    Left and right: Florence (2020)
    Florence (2020)
    Florence (2020)

    #murals
    #optical illusion
    #public art
    #street art

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    A Restored Vermeer Painting Reveals a Hidden Cupid Artwork Hanging in the Background

    
    Art

    #art history
    #painting
    #restoration

    August 25, 2021
    Grace Ebert

    All images via Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister
    A years-long restoration undertaken by the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden has entirely altered the understanding of a 17th-century painting by the Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer. What was once thought to be a somewhat glum depiction of a young girl reading near a window is now an amorous portrayal thanks to the unveiling of a naked Cupid hanging in the background.
    Conservators knew the image of the Roman god of love existed after a 1979 X-ray, although it was assumed that Vermeer had altered the piece himself. Only after they performed a series of infrared reflectography imagings, microscopic analyses, and X-ray fluorescence examinations in 2017 did they realize that the Cupid was covered decades after the painter’s death, even though they still aren’t sure who marred the original piece or when. This dramatic of an alteration is rare during restoration, considering standard processes generally involve simple cleaning and repairs.
    “When layers of varnish from the 19th century began to be removed from the painting, the conservators discovered that the ‘solubility properties’ of the paint in the central section of the wall were different to those elsewhere in the painting,” a statement says, explaining further:
    Following further investigations, including tests in an archaeometry laboratory, it was discovered that layers of binding agent and a layer of dirt existed between the image of Cupid and the overpainting. The conservators concluded that several decades would have passed between the completion of one layer and the addition of the next and therefore concluded that Vermeer could not have painted over the Cupid himself.
    The new restoration—dive into the lengthy process in the video below—is just one of the mysteries that’s surrounded “Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window” since its creation between 1657–59. Originally attributed to Rembrandt and later to Pieter de Hooch, the artwork wasn’t properly credited until 1880. The piece is evocative of another one of Vermeer’s works, “Lady Standing at a Virginal,” though, which similarly features a painting within a painting by showing a solitary figure standing near a window with Cupid on the wall behind her.
    “Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window” will be on view in its original form for the first time in centuries as part of an expansive exhibition dedicated to the painter running from September 10, 2021, to January 2, 2022, at the Dresden museum. (via Kottke)

    

    #art history
    #painting
    #restoration

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  • 163 Shares139 Views

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    Wrinkled Drapery and Speckled Orbs Disguise the Figures of Jessica Calderwood’s Peculiar Sculptures

    
    Art
    Craft

    #clay
    #found objects
    #identity
    #metal
    #sculpture
    #wool

    August 24, 2021
    Grace Ebert

    “Digging Heels,” copper, enamel, blown glass, porcelain, glass pins, and milk paint, 4 x 6 x 12 inches. All images © Jessica Calderwood, courtesy of Momentum Gallery, shared with permission
    Indiana-based artist Jessica Calderwood imbues her whimsically camouflaged figures with questions about the female psyche. Whether covered by a polka-dotted orb or stuck in a ruffled tube of fabric, her nondescript women are temporarily trapped by their environments, their only defining features the sleek black pumps or striped kneesocks that stick out from their disguise. This concealment, Calderwood says, serves as “a negation, a censoring or denial of what lies beneath. These anthropomorphic beings are at once, powerful and powerless, beautiful and absurd, inflated, and amputated.”
    Deftly melding historical techniques with contemporary themes of identity, each of the works is rooted in traditional craftsmanship. A focus on mixed media is at the center of Calderwood’s broad body of work, which spans metalsmithing, jewelry, and wall-based ceramics, and many of her projects blend materials like enamel, porcelain, polymer clay, and felted wool to further evoke craft forms.
    Many of the pieces shown here are all on view at Asheville’s Momentum Gallery through September 7, and you can find more of Calderwood’s peculiar sculptures on her site and Instagram.

    “Plop,” copper, enamel, porcelain, glass micro-beads, milk paint, and gold luster, 6 x 8 x 6 inches
    “Ivory Tower,” copper, brass, polymer, blown glass, vintage plastic buttons, glass pinheads, porcelain, milk paint, and enamel, 5 x 10 x 10 inches
    “Stacked,” aluminum, powder coating, cast bronze, brass, blown glass, ceramic decals, porcelain, and milk paint, 15 x 6 x 6 inches
    “Shortcake” (2019), copper, enamel, porcelain, rayon flocking, glass head pins, and milk paint
    Left: “Succulent” (2014), slip-cast vitreous china, brass, stainless steel, polymer clay, milk paint, 5 x 4 x 4 inches. Right: “Shade” (2017), slip-cast vitreous china, felted wool, head pins, milk paint, stainless steel, and sterling silver, 6 x 4 x 4 inches
    “Public and Private,” copper, electroplated enamel, porcelain, milk paint, and steel, 7 x 13 x 4 inches
    “Spout,” copper, enamel, glass microbeads, porcelain, pearls, sterling silver, and milk paint, 9 x 5 x 4 inches
    “Twist,” copper, enamel, glass seed beads, powder coating, porcelain, milk paint, and brass, 9 x 9 x 5 inches

    #clay
    #found objects
    #identity
    #metal
    #sculpture
    #wool

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    Fragmented Blocks of Color and Texture Overlap in Lui Ferreyra’s Layered Portraits

    
    Art
    Illustration

    #animals
    #colored pencil
    #digital
    #drawing
    #portraits

    August 24, 2021
    Grace Ebert

    “Awear Glasses,” digital drawing for Charmant USA. All images Lui Ferreyra, shared with permission
    Curved patches and geometric blocks comprise the layered portraits by Denver-based artist Lui Ferreyra (previously). Working both digitally and with colored pencil on paper, Ferreyra overlaps outlined fragments filled with thin lines to convey shadow and light, creating nuanced portrayals of his subjects. The prismatic works shown here are some of the artist’s more recent personal projects and commissions, which show the development of his distinct style during the last few years, in addition to the contrast he continues to draw between densely composed fields of color and larger expanses of negative space.
    Ferreyra is currently a resident in The Ramble Hotel’s Art Can program, and his illustrations will be on view at the Denver location’s pop-up gallery through September 7. A few prints are available in his shop, and you can follow his work on Instagram.

    “Unfinished Series 1,” digital drawing
    “Marc Maron,” digital drawing
    “Open Hand,” digital drawing
    “Psyche,” color pencil on black paper
    “Rainbow Series 1,” digital drawing
    “Rainbow Series 3,” digital drawing
    “Jasmin,” digital drawing for Scholarship America

    #animals
    #colored pencil
    #digital
    #drawing
    #portraits

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  • 125 Shares109 Views

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    Phlegm’s Monochromatic Comic Book Characters Explode Onto Walls Across Europe

    
    Art
    Illustration

    #comics
    #murals
    #street art

    August 19, 2021
    Christopher Jobson

    All images © Phlegm, shared with permission
    If there’s one theme that ties the epic stories unfolding in works by Sheffield-based Phlegm (previously), it’s a sense of action, toil, and perseverance. The otherworldly characters that appear in the Welsh artist’s murals, prints, paintings, and comic books are often unceasingly busy and cause mischief or wage battles using unusual crafts and weaponry. Each piece is a brilliant balance between his crisp monochromatic painting style born from the pages of his earlier comic books and the folk-ish narratives that often draw from historical artworks, leaving every piece open to interpretation by the viewer. Each piece can seem comical or tragic all at once.
    Phlegm recently completed a mural in Sweden and contributed to a sprawling collaboration with artists Sweet Toof, Teddy Baden, Run, and Mighty Mo on a single wall in London’s Hackney Wick neighborhood. You can follow more of his work on Instagram.

    Across the U

    #comics
    #murals
    #street art

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