Aurelia Butler

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    Miniature Figures Navigate Human-Sized Threats in Slinkachu’s Humorous Interventions

    
    Art

    #humor
    #installation
    #miniature

    November 5, 2020
    Grace Ebert

    All images © Slinkachu, shared with permission
    At first glance, Slinkachu’s scenes might appear to be a heap of multi-colored pills or a mess of children’s toys left behind on a London street corner. Closer inspection, however, reveals minuscule figures navigating human-sized items as if they occupy an alternate, miniature world occurring in sidewalk alcoves and planter boxes. Characters find themselves in a sea of medication that’s reminiscent of arcade ball pits, while others create a tower to fend off a nearby bee that’s triple each of their heights. Imbued with humor, the site-specific scenes often comment on contemporary social issues.
    Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Slinkachu (previously) has shifted to creating works in his home to minimize exposure to passersby. Although many of his projects were canceled or postponed, the Natural History Museum commissioned both the mushroom and bee works shown below for its Urban Nature project, a biologically diverse green space in central London. “My work has always reflected the sense of isolation and loneliness that a big city can imbue, but the isolation of being inside is new to me,” he shares with Colossal. “These were recreations of small parts of city streets built in my living room with concrete paving slabs and weeds and moss.” The shift in venue has the British artist reconsidering parts of his practice:
    It was a bit surreal recreating the outside world inside, but it has opened up new possibilities for me to create narrative images. By experimenting with mixing miniature sets and photographic backdrops, I’ve had many ideas about creating images that are not always possible to create outside on a real street without digital manipulation. It is different from my usual street work but a new avenue to explore.
    Follow Slinkachu’s latest installations on Instagram, and pick up a puzzle or print of his miniature figures from Affenfaust Galerie.

    #humor
    #installation
    #miniature

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    Immerse Yourself in the ‘Bob Ross Experience,’ a Permanent Exhibit Dedicated to the Beloved Painter

    
    Art
    History

    #interactive
    #museum
    #painting
    #tv

    November 5, 2020
    Grace Ebert

    Bob Ross on the set of The Joy of Painting. All images © Minnetrista, shared with permission
    In the small city of Muncie, Indiana stands a three-story house with white columns lining the front stoop. Now unassuming, the brick structure formerly featured a sign at its entrance reading “WIPB TV,” denoting the camera crew inside recording beloved icon Bob Ross, who filmed more than 400 episodes of The Joy of Painting in the space from 1983 to 1994. Today, the house has been transformed to honor the legacy of the PBS artist, whose joyful manner and positivity inspired his devoted fans for more than a decade.
    Formally called the Bob Ross Experience, the $1.2 million permanent exhibit and masterclass series pays homage to the painter by recreating the set where his soothing voice echoed instructions on blending pinks and blues for a sky or adding highlights. A rotating selection of his original paintings, like “Gray Mountain” and “Sunset Aglow,” line the home, which also features a 1980s-style living room complete with a plaid lounger. His personal items, including keys and hair pick, are on display, along with memorabilia celebrating Ross. Other than the artist’s palette knife, easel, and brushes, many of the artifacts are free to touch.

    The studio
    Opened in October, the museum is housed at the Lucius L. Ball House on the Minnetrista campus, a year-round gathering place with historic buildings, children’s entertainment, and workshops. About a half-mile up the street, the interactive exhibit continues in a building where “Certified Ross Instructors” teach masterclasses a few times each month. Participants are encouraged to embrace “happy little accidents,” just as Ross advocated in his episodes—many of which are available to watch on YouTube—as they paint serene landscapes, sunsets, and wildlife.
    In the coming months, Minnetrista organizers plan to convert the upper levels of the house into gallery and studio space, according to The New York Times. To follow updates on the renovations or book your own Bob Ross Experience, visit the organization’s site.

    Ross’s brushes
    The Lucius L. Ball House, where Ross filmed The Joy of Painting
    The entrance to the museum
    The living room of the Bob Ross Experience
    Artifacts on display in the museum
    A Certified Ross Instructor teaches a masterclass
    [embedded content]

    #interactive
    #museum
    #painting
    #tv

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  • 225 Shares149 Views

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    A Socially Anxious Character Disguises Itself As Owls, Pigeons, and Other Birds in Textured Sculptures by Clavin Ma

    
    Art

    #birds
    #ceramics
    #owls
    #sculpture

    November 4, 2020
    Grace Ebert

    “Comfort Zone,” ceramic with glaze, 12.5 x 7 x 7 inches. All images © Calvin Ma, courtesy of Foster/White Gallery, shared with permission
    In his ongoing series titled Blend In: Making Home, artist Calvin Ma (previously) conveys an incessant need to belong through a quirky character camouflaging itself as different birds. From owls to pigeons to Mandarin ducks, the precisely hued costumes envelop the figure in a mass of feathers and scaled footwear. The artist textures the ceramic sculptures by hand, etching countless lines into every plume.
    Each species represents an emotion or experience tied to social anxiety, which Ma bolsters with corresponding environments, like a birch cage or flower-lined nest. “Being shy, timid, and a bit socially awkward is something that will always be a part of me. The goal is to come to terms with it and grow from it,” the artist says of his own experience.
    If you’re in Seattle, head to Foster/White Gallery where Ma’s anthropomorphic pieces are on view through November 21. To see the works-in-progress, check out the artist’s Instagram.

    “In The Wind,” ceramic with glaze, 13 x 11 x 8 inches
    “Break Free,” ceramic with glaze, 13 x 9 x 9 inches
    Left: “Making Home,” ceramic with glaze, 17 x 12 x 9 inches. Right: “Out of the Woods,” ceramic with glaze, 11 x 6 x 6 inches
    “First Step,” ceramic with glaze, 14 x 7 x 6 inches
    “Hover,” ceramic with glaze, 14 x 10 x 8 inches
    Left: “Nesting,” ceramic with glaze, 10 x 7 x 6 inches. Right: “Time And Again,” ceramic with glaze, 12 x 11 x 8 inches
    “Fleeting,” ceramic with glaze, 16 x 29 x 8 inches

    #birds
    #ceramics
    #owls
    #sculpture

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  • 175 Shares189 Views

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    Takashi Murakami’s Iconic Flowers Engulf a CT Suite at a Washington D.C. Children’s Hospital

    
    Art

    #flowers
    #healthcare
    #hospitals
    #kids

    November 4, 2020
    Grace Ebert

    All images © Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd., by Kenson Noel, shared with permission
    Takashi Murakami recently transformed a sterile PET/CT scan suite at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C., into an uplifting garden of smiling flowers. The Japanese artist’s signature motif lines the walls and wraps around the machine itself, making the otherwise stark space less intimidating for its adolescent patients as they undergo the often lengthy and uncomfortable scanning procedure. The vibrant installation was completed in collaboration with RxArt, a nonprofit that commissions artists to create large-scale works for children’s healthcare spaces. For more from RxArt and Murakami, visit Instagram. (via Spoon & Tamago)

    #flowers
    #healthcare
    #hospitals
    #kids

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  • 138 Shares169 Views

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    An Anamorphic Mural Transforms a Montreal Street into Undulating Sand Dunes

    
    Art

    #anamorphosis
    #murals
    #optical illusion
    #public art
    #sand
    #street art

    November 3, 2020
    Grace Ebert

    All images © NÓS, by Olivier Bousquet, Eloa Defly, Raphaël Thibodeau, Alex Lesage, and Charles Laurence Proulx
    Along the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, sandy drifts swell and surge in a massive mural by the Canadian architecture firm NÓS. Aptly named “Moving Dunes,” the anamorphic artwork is comprised of neutral-toned lines that undulate along the walkway, creating a deceptive path mimicking deserts and beaches. Chrome spheres sporadically appear along the street in order to reflect the surrounding architecture and rippling patterns on the ground.
    The 2018 project coincided with the museum’s exhibition, From Africa to the Americas: Face-to-face Picasso, Past and Present, which prompted NÓS to evoke the perspective-bending approach of cubist painters. “Moving Dunes” was chosen after an annual call for proposals to install a large-scale artwork on the Avenue de Musée. Follow NÓS’s latest designs and illusory projects on Instagram. (via designboom)

    #anamorphosis
    #murals
    #optical illusion
    #public art
    #sand
    #street art

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  • 150 Shares109 Views

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    A Colorful Geometric Mural of a Cityscape Visualizes Humans’ Impact on Nature

    
    Art

    #cityscapes
    #climate change
    #flowers
    #murals
    #nature
    #public art
    #street art

    November 2, 2020
    Grace Ebert

    “Love of Nature” in Chelyabinsk, Russia. All images © Vitaly Tsarenkov, shared with permission
    Artist Vitaly Tsarenkov, who works under the moniker SY, depicts the threat of ecological catastrophe through a new mural featuring geometric flora, fauna, and objects typically found in bustling city centers. Created for the Urban Morphogenesis festival in Chelyabinsk, Russia, “Love of Nature” is a vertical rendering of the human impact on nature, with color-blocked trucks, road cones, and towering buildings near the top and a fire, flowers, and tufts of grass occupying space at the bottom.
    Based in Saint Petersburg, Russia, Tsarenkov says the 50-meter-high mural conveys that each person has the agency to protect the planet’s resources. “It’s impossible to stop all harmful factories at once, but to make the first step towards the clean Earth is not difficult and within everybody’s power just by taking the trash away after recreation in nature,” he writes on Instagram.

    #cityscapes
    #climate change
    #flowers
    #murals
    #nature
    #public art
    #street art

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  • 188 Shares189 Views

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    A Turbine-Faced Pilot Returns from War in a Surreal Animated Short About Love and Transformation

    
    Animation
    Art

    #black and white
    #short film
    #surreal
    #video

    October 30, 2020
    Grace Ebert

    
    Presented by the National Film Board of Canada, an animated short by Montreal-based director Alex Boya considers the complex effects of war through a heartwarming tale. “Turbine” opens with a woman climbing aboard a train that inches along the track like a worm. The black-and-white film then chronicles her journey reuniting with her pilot husband, who returns from war with an airplane engine permanently replacing his face and subsequently falls in love with the ceiling fan.
    Through incredibly rich renderings—the wrinkles on the characters’ hands and the whorling patterns in their hair are particularly detailed—Boya depicts peculiar scenes and quiet domestic moments to share a story about love, humanity, and transformation. In an interview about “Turbine,” the director says the film’s distinct style came about organically:
    It felt like creating sober instructional illustrations of real things, with an honest attempt to simply survey their opaqueness and shadows in a photorealistic world. Just like I focus on the water instead of on my body when I swim, it works not to think of style, but simply on the subject matter that is being drawn.
    For more short films, see the board’s Instagram and Vimeo, and check out Boya’s site to explore the entire Turbine Universe, which is complete with dozens of sketches and gifs of the hybrid character.

    #black and white
    #short film
    #surreal
    #video

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    Evoking Historical Struggles, Hank Willis Thomas Examines the Intersection of Art and Activism

    
    Art
    History

    #activism
    #identity
    #public art
    #sculpture

    October 29, 2020
    Grace Ebert

    “If the Leader Only Knew” (2014). All images © Hank Willis Thomas, shared with permission
    Through his bronze sculptures and public installations, Hank Willis Thomas (previously) examines history’s repetitions. The Brooklyn-based artist critically considers identity, social justice, and pop culture by visually weaving together the remains of the past that surface in present day. “Art is a platform where histories meet,” he tells Colossal.
    Thomas’s sculptural pieces include a series of hands clenching a barbed wire fence, an oversized hair pick lodged into concrete, and a gleaming basketball balancing on players’ fingertips. No matter the medium, the interdisciplinary artist begins by examining advertisements and archival images and the messages those contain. “The transfer of a photograph into a three-dimensional expression allows the viewer to delve within a photograph and form an intimate understanding of the ideas it represents. That relationship inspires critical thought about the viewer themselves and the world around them,” he says.
    Many of Thomas’s artworks reflect on historical moments, like the Holocaust and South African apartheid, and explicitly connect them to contemporary struggles. Photographs of mid-century Germany inspire sculptures, like “If the Leader Only Knew,” that evoke images of migrants detained at the United States-Mexico border. He ties a glimpse of mining workers to “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot,” a cry to end state-sanctioned police violence, which informs the outstretched arms in “Raise Up.” “History repeats itself, and art is one cultural framework through which we engage with these profound moments, hopefully awakening our consciousness,” the Brooklyn-based artist says.

    “Raise Up” (2014)
    For Thomas, art and activism are inextricable. In recent months, he’s been considering their critical intersections particularly in relation to creative movements like Wide Awakes and For Freedoms, an organization he co-founded that has been spearheading public projects prior to the 2020 election. “Art is not unaffected in this moment; it is the context that unifies our experiences of joy and even those of growth and pain. Art is the human experience. I am also curious about how people and society will change, and I think of my existence within this change as a man, as a Black man,” he says.
    Thomas’s work will be part of the group exhibition Barring Freedom at the San José Museum of Art, which runs from October 31, 2020, to April 25, 2021. A book surveying his decades-long practice, titled Hank Willis Thomas: All Things Being Equal, is available on Bookshop, and you can stay updated with his latest projects on Twitter and Instagram.

    “All Power to All People” (2017). Photo by Steve Weinik
    “Die dompas moet brand! / The Dompas must burn!” (2013)
    Left: “Globetrotter” (2016), fiberglass, chameleon auto paint finish, 32 1/2 × 11 × 20 inches. Right: “Tip Off” (2014), polyester resin and chameleon paint, 43 × 13 × 11 inches
    “History of the Conquest” (2017), bronze. Installation view at Jazz Museum for Prospect.4: The Lotus in Spite of the Swamp. Photo by Mike Smith

    #activism
    #identity
    #public art
    #sculpture

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