Aurelia Butler

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    Plants Embedded in Wax Sprout from Fragile Hands in Memory-Infused Works by Valerie Hammond

    
    Art

    #encaustic
    #flowers
    #hands
    #memory
    #plants
    #wax

    March 2, 2021
    Grace Ebert

    All images © Valerie Hammond, shared with permission
    In Valerie Hammond’s series of wax drawings, protection is two-fold: the artist (previously) encases dried flowers and ferns in a thin layer of wax, preserving their fragile tissues long after they’ve been plucked from the ground. In outlining a pair of hands, she also secures a memory, or rather, “the essence of a gesture and the fleeting moment in which it was made.”
    Centered on limbs lying flat on Japanese paper, the ongoing series dates back to the 1990s, when Hammond made the first tracing “partly in response to the death of a dear friend, whose beautiful hands I often found myself remembering.” She continued by working with family and friends, mainly women and children, to delineate their wrists, palms, and fingers. Today, the series features dozens of works that are comprised of either hands tethered to the dried botanics, which sprout outward in wispy tendrils, or others overlayed with thread and glass beads.
    Although the delicate pieces began as a simple trace, Hammond shares that she soon began to overlay the original drawing with pressed florals, creating encaustic assemblages that “echoed the body’s bones, veins, and circulatory systems.” She continued to experiment with the series by introducing various techniques, including printmaking, Xerox transfers, and finally Photoshop inversions, that distorted the original rendering and shifted her practice. Hammond explains:
    The works suddenly inhabited a space I had been searching for, straddling the indefinable boundary between presence and absence, material and immaterial, consciousness and the unconscious. For me, they became emblematic not only of the people whose hands I had traced but of my own evolving artistic process—testimony to the passing of time and the quiet dissolution of memory.
    Hammond’s work recently was included in a group show at Leila Heller Gallery. Her practice spans multiple mediums including collage, drawing, and sculpture, all of which you can explore on her site and Instagram.

    #encaustic
    #flowers
    #hands
    #memory
    #plants
    #wax

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    Poetic Sculptures by Valérie Hadida Cast Composed Women with Coiffed Hair in Bronze

    
    Art

    #body
    #bronze
    #hair
    #sculpture

    March 2, 2021
    Grace Ebert

    “Seaside,” bronze, 42 x 23 x 15 centimeters. All images © Valérie Hadida, courtesy of Galry, shared with permission
    For Valérie Hadida, the deep, protective partnerships fostered between women provide the foundation for her practice. The French artist casts bronze sculptures that are poetic and nuanced, depicting female figures wearing contemplative and composed expressions. “Coming from a large family where women reign supreme and play a key role, they have established a bond of serenity, trust, and complicity with me,” she tells Colossal. “The heroines of my works are always women because I am deeply convinced that it is they who will change and save the world.”
    Hadida begins with a sketch before building the figures that eventually are covered with green patina. In recent years, the size of the sculptures has grown from smaller works into those that stand more than a meter high, an expansion that brings the scale of the works closer to a human body. “I prefer to work on the curves, the flesh more than the muscles. These seem to me disabling because they are hard and violent,” she says. Most of the sculptures depict teenage years or middle age, a time that’s marked with transition and change.
    Generally seated, the figures’ poses and gestures appear temporary as if the woman has just shifted or is precariously settled on a stone. Although the bodies are still, their curls often swell upward to imply movement and sometimes are embedded with smaller silhouettes like in “Nocturna.” Their locks “typify each woman in her origins, in her age… The hair moves like the branches of a tree,” the artist says, noting that the plumed strands both accentuate and stabilize the figures’ supple curves, elongated fingers, and overall shape. “These women are marked by life. I do not represent perfect or idealized figures. These silhouettes are on the contrary very marked, very cut out. But their imperfections highlight their femininity,” she says.
    Hadida is represented by Galry in Paris, and you can find a larger collection of her elegantly sculpted works on Artsy.

    “La grande zénitude” (2021), bronze, 39 2/5 × 31 1/2 × 13 4/5 inches
    Detail of “Nocturna” (2017), bronze, 25 1/5 × 17 7/10 × 7 9/10 inches
    Left: “La rêveuse” (2018), bronze, 32 7/10 × 8 3/10 × 10 1/5 inches. Right: “Nouvel Amour” (2020), bronze, 29 1/2 × 11 4/5 × 11 4/5 inches
    Detail of “Trio de femmes” (2018), bronze, 21 3/10 × 15 × 7 9/10 inches
    “Trio de femmes” (2018), bronze, 21 3/10 × 15 × 7 9/10 inches
    “Nocturna” (2017), bronze, 25 1/5 × 17 7/10 × 7 9/10 inches
    Detail of “Nouvel Amour” (2018), bronze, 75 x 30 x 30 centimeters
    Detail of “Nouvel Amour” (2018), bronze, 75 x 30 x 30 centimeters

    #body
    #bronze
    #hair
    #sculpture

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    Swaths of Tulle Billow from Site-Specific Installations by Ana María Hernando

    
    Art

    #installation
    #site-specific
    #textiles

    March 1, 2021
    Grace Ebert

    “Solo se escuchaba el aire (Only The Air Was Heard)” (2020), tulle, wood, metal, 125 x 120 x 258 inches. Installation at the Château de la Napoule, La Napoule Art Foundation, France. Photo by Sebastian Collett. All images © Ana María  Hernando, shared with permission
    Fueled with a sense of rebellion, yards of colorful tulle cascade from windows and down staircases in site-specific installations by Ana María Hernando. The soft, pliable material breaches existing architecture and entwines trees in swaths of mesh, creating works that are both visually striking and subversive.
    Evocative of ballgowns and garments that are traditionally worn by women, the tulle explodes into a flood of fabric as a way to break with social constructions surrounding feminity. “As a Latina, I explore how the feminine comes forward in strength and flexibility, in beauty and in (an) unstoppable abundance of generosity,” the Argentinian artist says.
    Though she’s worked with a range of materials, Hernando shares that she always incorporates a textile element, which seems “to be an expansive conduit for my work” and references her childhood in Buenos Aires, where she observed the women in her family sewing, crocheting, and embroidering together every day. She explains:
    The things they made from fabric and thread were expressions of their spirit. All the beauty—the hours of work, the washing and ironing—was made invisible once the table was laid and stained with food. I explore the unacknowledged feminine force of work as a prayer that I have known my whole life.
    Hernando mainly works from Boulder, although she’s spent much of the year so far in a forest in Tennessee’s South Cumberland Plateau. If you’re in Colorado, view the artist’s multidisciplinary projects in the coming months as part of Present Box at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art and in a September solo show at Denver Botanic Gardens. In 2022, you can find her at the Sun Valley Museum of Art and Denver’s Robischon Gallery. Until then, explore an archive of her tufted, textile-based projects on her site and Instagram. (via Cross Connect Magazine)

    “Waterfall” (2020), a temporary tulle installation at the Château de la Napoule, La Napoule Art Foundation, France. Photo by Rachel Berkowitz
    “Waterfall” (2020), a temporary tulle installation at the Château de la Napoule, La Napoule Art Foundation, France. Photo by Rachel Berkowitz
    “Flood (Déferlante)” (2020), tulle, installation at the Château de la Napoule, La Napoule Art Foundation, France
    “Lantern” (2020), tulle, wire, and wood. Château de la Napoule, La Napoule Art Foundation, France
    “Unmoored from the Familiar Expectations” (2020), performative installation at the Château de la Napoule, La Napoule Art Foundation, France, featuring Christopher Kojzar and Alessandro Sciaraffa. Photo by Rachel Berkowtiz
    Photo by Sebastian Collett

    #installation
    #site-specific
    #textiles

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    Architecture and Bold Geometry Fragment Cubist Portraits by Patrick Oberhi Akpojotor

    
    Art

    #architecture
    #cubism
    #identity
    #painting
    #portraits
    #self-portrait

    March 1, 2021
    Grace Ebert

    “FELA the Rattle” (2019), acrylic on canvas, 48 x 36 inches. All images © Patrick Oberhi Akpojotor, shared with permission
    In his architectural portraits, Patrick Oberhi Akpojotor visualizes the exchange between humans and their built environments, whether real or imagined. The artist’s spatial body of work, which explicitly contemplates the relationship between interiority and exteriority, is founded in his childhood in Lagos, a city checkered with traditional, colonial, and contemporary structures where he still lives today. “I saw how a former residential area became a commercial one changing how people interacted with that community,” he says.
    Rendered in bold blocks of acrylic, Akpojotor’s paintings encourage introspection as they consider how identities inform the design of single buildings and infrastructure, which in turn shape the people who occupy those spaces. The anthropomorphic structures evoke cubist geometry and illusion, fracturing the body with a staircase, brick chimney, or entire house, and some works shown here, including both “In Memory of the Living” pieces, are self-portraits.
    Beyond his surroundings in Nigeria, Akpojotor derives inspiration from ancient African sculptures and masks, particularly “the way the forms are intentionally distorted to pass messages and symbols of their (beliefs),” he shares. “In my work, the way object(s) are placed does not matter. What is important is that the object(s) are represented, and the message is passed.”
    Find a collection of Akpojotor’s paintings, drawings, and sculptures on his site, in addition to studio shots and glimpses at works-in-progress on Instagram. (via Juxtapoz)

    “In Memory of the Living I” (2019), acrylic on canvas, 48 x 36 inches
    Left: “In my Image” (2020), acrylic on canvas, 96 x 63 inches. Right: “Oga Boss” (2020), acrylic on canvas, 48 x 36 inches
    “Girl with Red Ribbon” (2021), acrylic on canvas, 48 x 36 inches
    Left: “Witness to the times” (2020), acrylic on canvas, 48 x 36 inches. Right: “Time” (2019), acrylic on canvas, 48 x 36 inches
    “In Memory of the Living II” (2019), acrylic on canvas, 48 x 36 inches

    #architecture
    #cubism
    #identity
    #painting
    #portraits
    #self-portrait

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    Intricate Paper Animals Spring from Textured Sculptures by Artist Calvin Nicholls

    
    Art
    Craft

    #animals
    #birds
    #paper
    #sculpture

    March 1, 2021
    Anna Marks

    All images © Calvin Nicholls, shared with permission
    In Calvin Nicholls’s sculptural forms, feathered and furry creatures are meticulously crafted from small pieces of white paper. When viewed up-close, their texture resembles the fullness of a wintery landscape, but in full form, the Canadian artist’s animals are so vivid that they appear as though they could leap, fly, and spring out of the canvas. Nicholls (previously) seamlessly examines and sculpts every detail of an animal’s body, from the difference in plume texture in doves to the strained muscles of a giraffe to the intoxicating stare of a tiger stalking its prey.  
    Every work is crafted from archival cotton paper that prevents yellowing and fading. Nicholls uses minuscule amounts of glue to secure the individual pieces, employing knives and texturing tools to precisely sculpt each delicate part. For the artist, crafting fur and feathers are equally challenging, and how long a piece will take is difficult to predict. He shares:
    The largest sculptures I’ve done require several hundreds of hours while the more modest pieces keep me busy for two or more weeks. Familiarity with the subject is a big factor as well. My love of birds often propels me through pieces much faster than when sculpting subjects with (an) emphasis on musculature and structure.
    Nicholls’s fascination with paper as a medium stems from graphic design classes in college, in addition to later collaborations with a colleague. These experiences further forged his interest in experimenting with various materials and papers that he had become familiar with through the graphics trade.
    Follow additions to Nicholls’s monochromatic menagerie on Behance and Instagram, and see the originals and prints he has available in his shop.

    #animals
    #birds
    #paper
    #sculpture

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    A Field of Dried Grass Is Suspended from the Ceiling in ‘French Exit’ by Artist Tadao Cern

    
    Art

    #death
    #grass
    #installation

    February 26, 2021
    Grace Ebert

    “French Exit,” (2020-2021). All images © Tadao Cern, shared with permission
    In Tadao Cern’s sweeping installation “French Exit,” a cloud of feathery grasses looms over the room. The immersive artwork juxtaposes the ephemeral, dried material with the viewers who stand underneath as it creates a soothing and introspective space to consider the notions of farewells, whether it be the close of a party or more profound experiences, like the end of a relationship or death.
    Cern tells Colossal that the title refers to the colloquialism about leaving a social gathering without saying goodbye. “This is something that I usually do because as an introvert, I can not bear with the attention that you get once you say that you have to go. A ping pong game starts of, ‘I have to go,’ and ‘please don’t go,’” says the Lithuania-based artist (previously) says.

    Emitting a soft glow, the long-stemmed grasses connect to both the organic nature of the life cycle and the human desire to situate ourselves within a broader context, particularly when confronted by aging and death. Cern writes:
    I tried to focus more on the aspect of what we would be missing the most during the last seconds of leaving this place.. My guess (is that) it would be something banal, like fields of wheat during the sunset… Banality is a result of such a strong love and affection with something/somebody that you even get sick of it. And hanging everything on the ceiling creates an illusion of floating for the viewer as if you are being taken to the sky.
    Cern finished initial sketches for the installation—which also includes CGI elements and a massive arrow pointing downward—just before the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Months later, he was diagnosed with depression and anxiety, coincidental timing that altered his understandings of death and how we collectively say goodbye. “Once the pandemic is over, hopefully, we’ll have a chance to contemplate our farewells in reality. If there is such a thing,” he says.
    Purchase prints of the artist’s meditative projects on Patreon, and follow his latest installations on Instagram and Behance. (via Ignant)

    #death
    #grass
    #installation

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    Countless Paper Seeds Comprise the Fluctuating Landscapes in Ilhwa Kim’s Sculptural Works

    
    Art

    #abstract
    #paper
    #sculpture

    February 24, 2021
    Grace Ebert

    “Space Sample 36” (2020), 164 x 132 x 15 centimeters. All images © Ilhwa Kim, shared with permission
    In Ilhwa Kim’s sculptural landscapes, innumerable paper seeds form precise rows, indented pockets of densely packed folds, and multi-color valleys that wind through the feet-wide works. The South Korean artist arranges individual units of the rolled material in a staggered manner, meaning that the color, shadow, and texture of the final pieces shift with each viewing. “I am probably a sculptor of senses. I have been very curious how my senses are being organized when I perceive a thing or a location. The order, priority, and the way of being assembled together surprise me. How the senses reunited keeps evolving from initial contact to temporary goodbye,” she says, noting that change and perception play a central role in her practice.
    Each composition begins with blank, white paper that Kim dyes and rolls into tight tubes that can be sliced only with heavy machinery. She forgoes gluing any of the seeds prior until the entire piece is complete. “This working process gives big freedom to make meaningful changes even when very close to the final stage,” the artist shares. “That is how a child plays, as well.” The comprehensive process transforms the original material into durable units that resemble the organic lifeform and ultimately grow into larger sculptures.
    Based in Seoul, Kim has a solo show slated for September 2021 at HOFA Gallery in London, and you can see a larger collection of her works, including shots of pieces-in-progress, on Instagram. (via Cross Connect Magazine)

    Detail of “Space Station Sample” (2016), 192 x 334 x 12 centimeters
    “Space Station Sample” (2016), 192 x 334 x 12 centimeters
    Detail of “Space Sample 36” (2020), 164 x 132 x 15 centimeters
    “Seed Universe 108” (2019), 184 x 152 x 15 centimeters. Image via HOFA
    “White Portrait” (2019), 184 x 152 x 15 centimeters
    “Space Sample 30” (2019), 119 x 186 x 15 centimeters
    “Seed School 3” (2019), 114 x 234 x 13 centimeters
    Left: “Seed School 7” (2020), 114  x 234 x 13 centimeters. Right: “Seed universe 83” (2018), 184 x 132 x 15 centimeters
    Detail of “Space Station 5” (2019), 192 x 224 x 15 centimeters
    “Space Sample 45” (2020), 184 x 152 15 centimeters

    #abstract
    #paper
    #sculpture

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    Clothesline Farm Animals Graze the Countryside in Playful Illusions by Helga Stentzel

    
    Art

    #animals
    #clothing
    #cows
    #humor

    February 23, 2021
    Grace Ebert

    “Pegasus.” All images © Helga Stentzel, shared with permission
    Instead of tossing an old pair of pants or T-shirt, Helga Stentzel puts her tired garments out to pasture. So far, the London-based artist has added Pegasus and Smoothie, a pair of clothesline equine and bovine, to her herd of playful interventions hung in bucolic landscapes. Stenzel’s practice, which she terms “household surrealism,” is derived from her childhood in Siberia, where she spent hours surveying her grandmother’s carpet, birch logs, and random objects for recognizable forms, including “a stack of buckets resembling the tower of Pisa,” she tells Colossal.
    Prints of the laundry creatures are available in Stentzel’s shop, and you can follow additions to the drove—the artist currently is creating a few more farm animals while braving the -32 degree weather in Russia—on Instagram, where you’ll also find a variety of quirky food-based characters. (via Laughing Squid)

    “Smoothie”

    #animals
    #clothing
    #cows
    #humor

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