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Surreal Narratives Unfurl Between Animals in Laura Catherwood’s Dreamy Paintings
15 September 2025, 18:00
“Flying Lesson (Dusk).” All photos by Matt Wenc. Images courtesy of the artist and Vertical Gallery, shared with permission
Surreal Narratives Unfurl Between Animals in Laura Catherwood’s Dreamy Paintings
September 15, 2025
ArtIllustrationNature
Kate Mothes
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Curious foxes, sleepy fawns, and daring mice are just a few of the woodland creatures that populate Laura Catherwood’s dreamy drawings and paintings. Working primarily in graphite and oil, she situates recognizable animals into unexpected and fantastical situations in illustrations that “explore the inner emotional landscape while simultaneously soothing the viewer,” she says.
It often takes a moment to comprehend the scope of each of Catherwood’s scenarios. A pair of spotted frogs in “Rue,” for example, is not what it seems at first, as two heads emerge from one body, and their long tongues are both pierced with a fishing hook. And in “Inexhaustible,” a toad with an unusual, bowl-like back full of water provides a tiny oasis for a troupe of flying fish.
“Inexhaustible”
Catherwood is interested in the power of illustration to channel feelings, questions, and experiences that may be challenging or revolve around grief. Her scenarios are surreal and even a little cryptic, yet we’re invited to witness intimate, affecting, and enigmatic narratives that prompt curiosity and wonder.
A couple of these works are currently on view alongside Jerome Tiunayan and Joseph Renda Jr. in The Scenic Route at at Vertical Gallery, which runs through September 27 in Chicago.
Catherwood is also currently working on a series of nine small murals as part of a public outreach project about invasive species, plus a small body of work related to species found in Upstate New York, where she’s soon moving. And she’s also preparing for two solo exhibitions next year. See more on the artist’s website and Instagram.
“Rue”
“Stirring”
“Listen”
“Flying Lesson (Dawn)”
“The Bridge”
“Hard to Find”
“Everything Happens for the First Time”
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Uncanny Papier-Mâché Creatures by Roberto Benavidez Mingle in ‘Bosch Beasts’
15 September 2025, 15:32
“Illuminated Piñata No. 19” (2021), paper, paperboard, glue, wire, and crepe paper, 33 x 20 x 12 inches. Photos by Paul Salveson. All images courtesy of the artist and Perrotin, shared with permission
Uncanny Papier-Mâché Creatures by Roberto Benavidez Mingle in ‘Bosch Beasts’
September 15, 2025
ArtHistory
Kate Mothes
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Most often associated with Mexico, the piñata’s origins may actually trace back to China. By the 14th century, the celebratory tradition of breaking open a container filled with treats had arrived in Europe. Then, Spanish colonists and missionaries imported the custom to Mexico during the 16th century, although a similar practice was already in use within Indigenous Mayan and Aztec communities in observation of special events. Today, piñatas are an integral element of cartonería, the Mexican craft of papier-mâché.
For Los Angeles-based artist Roberto Benavidez, the art of the piñata is a central tenet of a practice exploring intersecting themes of race, sexuality, humor, sin, and beauty. He draws upon the paper art form’s early religious significance in Mexico, when Spanish missionaries used a seven-pointed version as a tool for converting Indigenous people to Christianity. This motif, which appears in some of Benavidez’s distinctive sculptures, nods to its past colonial use.
“Bosch Bird No. 11” (2022), paper, paperboard, glue, wire, and crepe paper, 24 x 60 x 18 inches
“The points of the star represented the seven deadly sins, the blindfold worn by the bat-wielding assailant represented faith, and the treats found inside were the rewards for blind and unwavering belief,” Diva Zumaya says in an exhibition essay for the artist’s current solo exhibition, Bosch Beasts, at Perrotin.
Benavidez continues to make piñata-like sculptures that resemble uncanny, hybrid creatures, often inspired by the marginalia of illuminated manuscripts and the surreal characters in Hieronymus Bosch’s “The Garden of Earthly Delights,” which the Netherlandish artist painted between 1490 and 1510.
Bosch Beasts highlights Benavidez’s ongoing fascination with the rare and extraordinary, exhibiting new works alongside pieces he’s made throughout the past decade. Installed on the floor or suspended from the ceiling, his creatures appear independently occupied and immersed in an esoteric group activity.
Each piece comes to life through papier-mâché, using a balloon to create the central form before adding more structure with Bristol board and additional layers of glue-slathered paper. Wire supports more delicate limbs and appendages, and to achieve the final texture, Benavidez cuts and attaches every tiny feather or scale.
“Bosch Beast No. 14” (2025), paper, paperboard, glue, wire, and crepe paper, 33 × 19 × 14 inches
“Drawing from his personal experience as a queer and mixed-race MexicanAmerican, Benavidez starts from a foundation of hybridity in which these monsters are the perfect actors,” Zumaya says, continuing:
Every mixed-race person who has become well acquainted with the question, “What are you?” is all too familiar with how it feels to live at the borders of identities, appearances complicating the compulsion to categorize. The way Benavidez uses these hybrid bodies to conjure ideas around race echoes their meaning in sixteenth-century Europe, where notions of the monstrous were profoundly intertwined with early formations of race.
Bosch Beasts continues through October 18 in Los Angeles. See more on the artist’s website and Instagram.
Installation view of ‘Bosch Beasts’
“Bosch Beast No. 16” (2025), paper, paperboard, glue, wire, crepe paper, 23 × 23 × 19 inches
“Bosch Beast No. 10” (2020), paper, paperboard, glue, wire, and crepe paper, 3 1/2 x 26 1/2 x 7 inches
Installation view of ‘Bosch Beasts’
“Bosch Bird No. 12” (2025), paper, paperboard, glue, wire, and crepe paper, 71 x 11 x 11 inches
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Joseph Renda Jr.’s Surreal Trompe-l’œil Portals Frame Esoteric Scenes
12 September 2025, 13:00
“Growth/Process.” All images courtesy of the artist and Vertical Gallery, Chicago, shared with permission
Joseph Renda Jr.’s Surreal Trompe-l’œil Portals Frame Esoteric Scenes
September 12, 2025
Art
Kate Mothes
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In the paintings of Joseph Renda Jr., trompe-l’œil windows, arches, and blue skies meet in surreal settings. His René Magritte-esque canvases celebrate nature and the uncanny, sometimes infused with a tinge of humor, to encourage an appreciation for the interconnectedness of all things. Instead of focusing on the subconscious, like the 20th-century Surrealists, Renda emphasizes elements of our surroundings—birds, gardens, flowers, and expansive landscapes—which nevertheless possess rich symbolism.
Birds, for example, have traditionally represented freedom, optimism, and connections to spiritual worlds. Plants, storms, tools, and myriad other motifs carry their own inherent meanings, from notions of growth and transformation to balance and justice. Situated within windows and archways, we’re invited to peer into—but not quite enter—an esoteric world. And the blue sky sometimes cracks to reveal what may, in fact, be a façade with who-knows-what beyond what we can see.
“Rough Waters”
Renda’s recent stone arch pieces are included in a three-person show at Vertical Gallery, The Scenic Route, alongside Jerome Tiunayan and Laura Catherwood. The exhibition runs through September 27 in Chicago. Find more on Renda’s website and Instagram.
“The Sky Is Falling”
“Memory”
“Where the Day Meets the Night”
“Passing By”
“Stop and Let the Roses Smell You”
“Perspective”
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Giant Inflatable Sculptures by Steve Messam Reimagine Everyday Environments
11 September 2025, 14:10
“Accommodation:Occupation.” All images courtesy of Steve Messam, shared with permission
Giant Inflatable Sculptures by Steve Messam Reimagine Everyday Environments
September 11, 2025
Art
Kate Mothes
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From bubble-like bulges amid the arches of London’s iconic Old Billingsgate to a 15-meter-tall red droplet frozen in the center of a disused swimming pool in Aberdeen, Steve Messam explores scale, form, and our experiences of the built environment in large-scale installations.
Messam is known for his large-scale inflatable works that reinterpret architecture and explore human influence over the landscape. Often, he fills apertures like arcades or underpasses with forms that balloon and billow, drawing attention to structural forms while considering their fundamental function as places to enter or move through.
“Facade”
In “Accommodation:Occupation,” Messam delves into the history of 19th-century infrastructure in the U.K. through an exploration of what are known as accommodation and occupation bridges—railroad crossings designed for rural areas that provided a tunnel beneath, so that farmers could still access their land on the other side of the tracks. Some of these historic bridges still exist, often on private land, such as two in County Durham along the former route of the Stockton & Darlington Railway.
For “Below,” which Messam situated under a bridge in Tianfu Art Park in Chengdu, China, the site’s use as a thoroughfare is retained by creating two symmetric forms with a gap between them, which people can walk through while immersing themselves in the installation.
Whether popcorn-like, spiked, bubbling, or cascading, Messam’s playful interventions prompt us to view our surroundings with renewed attention. Explore even more on the artist’s website and Instagram.
“Below”
“Facade”
“Packaged”
“Cascade”
“Accommodation:Occupation”
“Accommodation:Occupation”
“Below”
“Below”
“Packaged”
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Sergiu Ciochinǎ’s ‘Blue Series’ Explores Personal Memories, Dreams, and Moods
10 September 2025, 16:00
“Self-Portrait with a Swan.” All images courtesy of the artist, shared with permission
Sergiu Ciochinǎ’s ‘Blue Series’ Explores Personal Memories, Dreams, and Moods
September 10, 2025
Art
Kate Mothes
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Cradling tiny homes, seated amid flowers, or asleep and dreaming in a garden, the figures in Sergiu Ciochinǎ’s paintings rest and interact in moments of poignant solitude and reverie. The artist’s Blue Series is a visual collection of his own memories, reflections, and moods, which he elaborates into atmospheric and sometimes fantastical canvases.
“For me, blue is the color of gentle melancholy, profound calm, and also a hidden hope,” Ciochinǎ says. Titles like “Don’t Eclipse Me” and “You Are Your Own Home” tap into our deep-seated desire for connection and a sense of belonging. They also hint at the nature of individuality within the context of our relationships with others, navigated in a series of dreamy scenes.
“You Are Your Own Home”
Ciochinǎ also creates glowing landscapes that capture building facades at sunrise or sun-dappled streets of historic European towns. Time and light play a significant role in his portrayals of anonymous figures, too, illuminating their skin with glowing details or situating them in the shadow of floral arrangements or verdant, dusky gardens.
The figures’ positions and blue tone nod slightly to Pablo Picasso’s Blue Period around 1901 to 1904, when the artist’s earlier, more realistic depictions of people and domestic spaces were largely rendered in blue and blue-green tones to underscore themes of despair and turmoil. For Ciochinǎ, dreams and emotions center in his mystical compositions.
“I wanted each canvas to convey a kind of breath, a calm vibration, almost musical,” the artist says. “Blue, for me, becomes a meeting space between reality and dream, between memory and the present—a bridge that invites the viewer to pause and contemplate.”
Ciochinǎ is currently preparing for a solo exhibition in Paris next year, which will include work expanding on the Blue Series. See more on his website, and follow updates on Instagram.
“Morning”
“Nowhere”
“Don’t Eclipse Me”
“Silent Garden”
“You Will Bloom Without Me”
“Pick a Flower, or Even Me”
“When the Flowers Weep, We Dream—So Beautiful, So Unaware”
“Nights of June”
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‘Butterfly’ Explores 4,000 Years of Our Fascination with Lepidoptera in Art and Science
9 September 2025, 23:16
Kerry Miller, “A Handbook to the Order Lepidoptera” (2013), mixed media, 10 1/4 x 16 1/8 × 3 1/8 inches. Photo courtesy of Kerry Miller. All images courtesy of Phaidon, shared with permission
‘Butterfly’ Explores 4,000 Years of Our Fascination with Lepidoptera in Art and Science
September 9, 2025
ArtBooksNatureScience
Kate Mothes
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Since time immemorial, we have been awed by the ornate patterns, metamorphosis, and migrations of butterflies and moths. Their uncanny life stages and spectrum of vibrant colors and textures—both as caterpillars and as adult insects—endlessly inspire wonder.
Butterfly: Exploring the World of Lepidoptera, a new book forthcoming from Phaidon on October 1, celebrates these distinctive winged creatures throughout art history and science. From portrayals in 4,000-year-old Egyptian artworks to pioneering entomological studies during the Enlightenment to contemporary explorations, the volume surveys our enduring fascination with the insects.
John Abbot, “Black and Blue Admirable Butterfly and Chestnut-coloured Butterfly” (c.1774–1841), etching from watercolor, 15 3/8 x 11 3/4 inches. Image courtesy of Missouri Botanical Garden, Peter H. Raven Library
So far, scientists have documented about 20,000 species of butterflies in the world, but there are likely more. And in the order of Lepidoptera, which includes moths, estimates of the total number of species range from a staggering 180,000 to 265,000. The largest is known as Queen Alexandra’s Birdwing, with a wingspan that can reach up to one foot. And when it comes to moths, a similarly sized wingspan can be found on a Southeast Asian species known as the Atlas Moth.
Artists have long captured the likeness of butterflies in a range of media as a way to symbolically represent transformation, rebirth, beauty, and purity. More than 250 entries fill Butterfly, including sculptures, photography, paintings, illustrations, textiles, and more, which tap into the myriad ways in which these marvelous bugs pollinate not only our fragile ecosystems but our imaginations, too.
Pre-order your copy now in the Colossal Shop.
Ralph Martin, “Old World Swallowtail Wing” (2018), photograph, dimensions variable. Image courtesy of Ralph Martin / BIA / Nature Picture Library
Rebecca Coles, “British Masters 01” (2017), recycled art books and entomology pins, 39 3/8 x 39 3/8 inches. Image courtesy of TAG Fine Arts
Anonymous, Atlas Moth (c.1615), gouache on paper, 7 x 4 3/4 inches. Image courtesy of Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Wardell Milan, “Sunday, Sitting on the Bank of Butterfly Meadow” (2013), chromogenic print, 39 7/8 x 60 inches. Image © Wardell Milan, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco and Sikkema Malloy Jenkins, New York
Katsushika Hokusai, “Peonies and Butterfly” (1833–4), woodcut print, ink, and color on paper, 10 × 14 5/8 inches. Image courtesy of Minneapolis Institute of Art
Cat Johnston, “Moth Creature” (2024), cloth, fur, paint, and epoxy clay Image © Cat Johnston
Martin Frobenius Ledermüller, “Butterfly Wing Scales” (c.1764), watercolor and ink on paper, 10 x 8 inches. Image courtesy of Biodiversity Heritage Library; Smithsonian Libraries and Archives
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In Rural Wisconsin, Pat Perry Connects the Various Forces That Shape Our World
9 September 2025, 16:10
“27 Schoolteachers and a Volcano.” All images courtesy of Pat Perry, shared with permission
In Rural Wisconsin, Pat Perry Connects the Various Forces That Shape Our World
September 9, 2025
Art
Grace Ebert
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In a rural Wisconsin city of just more than 1,200 people, the hyperlocal and the universal converge in a new mural by Pat Perry (previously). “27 Schoolteachers and a Volcano” is just as its title suggests: the large-scale piece depicts snow-capped mountains with an explosive volcano at its center, while small portraits of local educators line the top and bottom borders.
Commissioned by Princeton Art Collective, the mural captures the vertiginous experience of life today, particularly as we consume more information than ever before and must confront seemingly endless disasters and devastations around the globe. Perry wanted to highlight how we can “find meaning in ordinary life while constantly witnessing things happening in the world beyond your control.”
“Even in a small rural town, you’re not insulated from the immense forces that shape the world. History happens. Economies rise and fall. Wars begin. Continents drift and mountains erode. One day, the sun will expand and swallow the Earth. Most of us don’t get much of a say in any of it,” he says.
To conceptualize the work, the collective helped to contact and secure permissions from the teachers pictured, and with the exception of the woman in the red floral garment at the bottom of the piece—she’s the artist’s mother and a retired educator—all work in the area. And why teachers? Perry explains:
Day after day, people find purpose. They wake up early, show up with intention, and try to make sense of things—not just for themselves, but also for others. Teachers do this every day. Not for recognition, and rarely for much pay. It’s a repetitive act of maintenance that holds things together.Choosing to shoulder that task, even while standing at the edge of something vast and indifferent, is a quiet act of defiance. Amidst overwhelmingness and uncontrollableness and unanswerableness, teachers—and all custodians of human affairs—keep meaning in the world by steadily and stubbornly tending to it.
“27 Schoolteachers and a Volcano” is located in Princeton, Wisconsin. Find more from Perry on his website and Instagram.
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Cheng-Tsung Feng’s “Sailing Castle” Cruises Through 400 Years of Taiwanese History
9 September 2025, 14:33
All images courtesy of Cheng-Tsung Feng, shared with permission
Cheng-Tsung Feng’s “Sailing Castle” Cruises Through 400 Years of Taiwanese History
September 9, 2025
ArtCraftDesign
Kate Mothes
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Through the study of time-honored craft techniques, Taiwanese artist Cheng-Tsung Feng envisions contemporary installations that connect us not only to the past but also to nature and our present surroundings.
Working across sculpture, installation, craft, and design, the artist draws on what he describes as “ancient and gradually forgotten oriental culture,” translating traditional motifs and methods into new works that nod to the continuum of East Asian art and ingenuity. One might even position his practice within the realm of storytelling, tapping into collective cultural memories and overlapping histories.
In his installation “Sailing Castle” in Tainan, Feng evokes the sails of wooden ships as a visual metaphor for the urban landscape, “where clusters of buildings resemble vessels gathered in harbor,” he says. Symbolizing movement, discovery, and societal progress and expansion, he creates a dialogue between architecture and advancement, along with memory and the present moment.
The beams and sails are inspired by a number of actual buildings in Tainan like the Confucius Temple, Fort Zeelandia—built by the Dutch East India Company in the 17th century—and Chihkan Tower, another Dutch outpost also known as Fort Provintia.
Called Formosa in the mid-1600s, Taiwan was under colonial rule by the Dutch, whose trade interests centered predominantly around Chinese silks imported to Europe, where they were prized for their luxury and highly sought after. Situated at the Anping Shipyard historical site, amid the canals of the West Central District, Feng wraps the area’s maritime heritage and four-centuries-long legacy of shipping into “Sailing Castle.”
“The overlapping sails evoke both the gathering of ships along the waterfront and the simultaneous anticipation of departure and the arrival of returning voyagers,” he says.
Using primarily wood and canvas, Feng’s pavilion is a cross between artistic intervention and functional meeting space, complete with small surfaces jutting out of the posts on which visitors can sit. Cruising, as it were, through a green park and illuminated at night, “Sailing Castle” sparks a sense of awe at the same time as it encourages us to slow down for a moment or two of contemplation and rest.
Find more on the artist’s website and Instagram.
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Aurelia Butler

More stories

Surreal Narratives Unfurl Between Animals in Laura Catherwood’s Dreamy Paintings

Uncanny Papier-Mâché Creatures by Roberto Benavidez Mingle in ‘Bosch Beasts’

Joseph Renda Jr.’s Surreal Trompe-l’œil Portals Frame Esoteric Scenes

Giant Inflatable Sculptures by Steve Messam Reimagine Everyday Environments

Sergiu Ciochinǎ’s ‘Blue Series’ Explores Personal Memories, Dreams, and Moods

‘Butterfly’ Explores 4,000 Years of Our Fascination with Lepidoptera in Art and Science

In Rural Wisconsin, Pat Perry Connects the Various Forces That Shape Our World

Cheng-Tsung Feng’s “Sailing Castle” Cruises Through 400 Years of Taiwanese History

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