Art Archivi ~ Page 5 of 262 ~ art-news.space - All about the world of art and culture!

More stories

138 Shares198 Views
in Art
Celeste’s Immersive Textile Installations Embrace the Warm Intimacy of Home
by Aurelia Butler 9 May 2025, 21:18
“Contra el miedo y la oscuridad, la fiesta colorida y feliz” (2024), pigments and acrylic base on dyed cotton canvas, 4.5 x 7.5 meters, installation view at Escuela Primaria Maestra Antonio Caso, Mexico City. Photo by Israel Esparza. All images courtesy of Celeste, shared with permission
Celeste’s Immersive Textile Installations Embrace the Warm Intimacy of Home
May 9, 2025
Art
Grace Ebert
Share
Pin
Email
Bookmark
When María Fernanda Camarena and Gabriel Rosas Alemán aren’t in their Mexico City studio, you might find them pulling weeds or chopping vegetables. “We love cooking and gardening—practices rooted in care, and ones we’d love to weave into our work someday,” they say. “There’s a quiet mindfulness in both that aligns perfectly with what we aim to express.”
This desire to care roots much of the artists’ practice, which they present together under the name Celeste. Thinking of themselves as hosts, Celeste transforms galleries and museums with large-scale textile installations. In warm shades of pinks, oranges, and reds, the translucent cotton often allows light to filter through and cast tinted shadows around the space. Each work becomes a sort of mise-en-scène as viewers are invited to lounge with friends, enjoy a meal, or perform among the textiles.
Installation view of “Melons Covered in Willow Leaves” at the artists’ studio. Photo by Anna Pla Narbona
The earthy color palette—originally inspired by natural dyeing materials like avocado pit and turmeric root—began after the onset of COVID-19, when the artists wanted to create “an atmosphere that felt like an embrace, a much-needed warmth after the isolation of 2020,” they say. “This concept of solace stayed with us, and today, the palette has come to symbolize safe spaces, with the womb as a recurring motif: a protected, intimate interior.”
Projects include “Contra el miedo y la oscuridad, la fiesta colorida y feliz,” or “Against fear and darkness, the colorful and happy party,” made in collaboration with a 4th-grade class from Mexico City’s Granada neighborhood. After adding their own drawings to the cotton panels, the students used the vivid installation as the backdrop for a school festival.
The monumental “Melons Covered in Willow Leaves” is even more immersive, as viewers were invited to wander underneath a tent of draped fabric. And in their most recent exhibition at Rebecca Camacho Presents in San Francisco, the artists have installed a trio of suspended works that bisect the gallery, with arched openings that allow visitors to pass through. Referencing Diego Rivera’s “Agua, el origen de la vida” mural, the triad explores the connections between water and the impact of Mexico City’s colonial history on its landscape.
Later this month at The Bentway in Toronto, the pair will also present “Casting a Net, Casting a Spell,” a quilted canopy of 100 individual panels created as both a suncatcher and a necessary repreieve from the summer rays. It’s their largest project to date.
Installation view of Hacer brotar / To sprout at Rebecca Camacho Presents, San Francisco. Photo by Robert Divers Herrick
With each work, Celeste hopes to “invite the spectator not only in the sense of contemplation but rather in the involvement with the ceremonial… In this setting, the sensorial and emotional realms are recognized as legitimate sources of knowledge and an experience of hospitality and acknowledgment can take place without restrictions.”
Celeste’s Hacer brotar / To sprout is on view through June 14 in San Francisco. Explore much more of the duo’s practice and process on their website and Instagram.
Detail of “¡Qué llueva, qué llueva!” (2025), pigments and acrylic base on dyed cotton canvas, 66 x 109 inches
Installation view of Hacer brotar / To sprout at Rebecca Camacho Presents, San Francisco. Photo by Robert Divers Herrick
“Contra el miedo y la oscuridad, la fiesta colorida y feliz” (2024), pigments and acrylic base on dyed cotton canvas, 4.5 x 7.5 meters, installation view at Escuela Primaria Maestra Antonio Caso, Mexico City. Photo by Israel Esparza
“Hacer olas” (2023), pigments and acrylic base on dyed cotton canvas, 2.7 x .25 x 12 meters, installation view at The Contemporary Austin, Austin, Texas. Photo by Alex Boeschenstein
“Mellons Covered in Willow Leaves” 2024), scale model of the project in the artists’ studio
Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member now, and support independent arts publishing.
Hide advertising
Save your favorite articles
Get 15% off in the Colossal Shop
Receive members-only newsletter
Give 1% for art supplies in K-12 classrooms
Join us today!
$7/month
$75/year
Explore membership options
Next article More
125 Shares168 Views
in Art
Caio Marcolini Weaves Delicate Metal Mesh into Spawning Cellular Sculptures
by Aurelia Butler 9 May 2025, 14:59
All images courtesy of Caio Marcolini, shared with permission
Caio Marcolini Weaves Delicate Metal Mesh into Spawning Cellular Sculptures
May 9, 2025
Art
Grace Ebert
Share
Pin
Email
Bookmark
Caio Marcolini’s fascination with organic systems began simply enough. It was “the trail left by the sea on the sand, the intertwined roots of trees within the forest, (and) the flowers falling from trees” that he found enchanting. But then, when his first child was born in 2021, he began investigating how these same winding, looping, knotted patterns appeared inside the body.
What resulted is a series of roving sculptures woven with thin strips of brass, copper, and iron wire. Hollow tubes emerge from delicate bell-like forms secured to a wall, while occasional, long drips drop from the upper area and dangle mid-air.
Trained as a goldsmith, Marcolini incorporates jewelry-making techniques and industrial design principles into his painstaking, entirely hand-powered process. Using a mallet, dowels, and various manual tools, the Brazilian artist creates a perfectly uniform mesh that he then shapes into supple, rounded forms. “I rarely draw—just small sketches—and most of the time, I imagine a shape using initial parameters,” he says. “The compositions are made in an exploratory way, fluid and organic, as I weave the structure and experiment on the studio wall. I can say it’s a very intuitive process.”
As the artist sees it, these individual, linked metal pieces are like single cells or DNA that repeat again and again, spawning new forms. While distinct in shape, the sculptures are still malleable, transparent, and abstract. The works resemble the circuitous systems found in the human body, but also the creatures found in forests and oceans, and occupy a sort of ambiguous, hybrid space.
Marcolini titles his collections with words like colony, system, captured, and bilateral. Referencing the relationship between single components and the larger whole, each body of work becomes a sort of community of organisms that seem to take on a life of their own. Rather than impose a particular interpretation, the artist leaves the exact form of the works open-ended, as if they might morph into new life at any moment.
Not Every Repetition is a Return, Marcolini’s solo exhibition, is on view through May 23 at Galeria Lica Pedrosa in São Paulo. Find more of his work on his website and Instagram.
Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member now, and support independent arts publishing.
Hide advertising
Save your favorite articles
Get 15% off in the Colossal Shop
Receive members-only newsletter
Give 1% for art supplies in K-12 classrooms
Join us today!
$7/month
$75/year
Explore membership options
Previous articleNext article More
138 Shares169 Views
in Art
Kandy G. Lopez Embroiders Striking, Life-Size Yarn Portraits Highlighting BIPOC Narratives
by Aurelia Butler 8 May 2025, 15:30
Detail of “City Girls” (2025), yarn, acrylic, and spray paint on hook mesh canvas, 102 x 168 inches. All images courtesy of the artist and ACA Galleries, shared with permission
Kandy G. Lopez Embroiders Striking, Life-Size Yarn Portraits Highlighting BIPOC Narratives
May 8, 2025
ArtCraft
Kate Mothes
Share
Pin
Email
Bookmark
On large swaths of colorful mesh, Kandy G. Lopez embroiders large-scale portraits of people from historically marginalized communities. “Her works are created out of the necessity to learn something new about her people and culture,” says a statement.
Drawing on her Afro-Caribbean ancestry, the Fort Lauderdale-based artist celebrates the style, culture, and heritage of individuals as a way to build connections and generate dialogue around representation.
“R² – Roscoe and Reggie” (2024), yarn and acrylic paint on hook mesh, 90 x 60 inches
Lopez began working with mesh and fiber almost ten years ago, but she began to approach it more seriously as a major tenet of her practice in 2021 while an artist-in-residence at The Hambidge Center in Georgia. “As a painter, my backgrounds were minimal. Sometimes they would have monochromatic cityscapes,” Lopez tells Colossal, “So, leaving the background rare is something I’m familiar with.”
Visibility, presence, and representation are vital to the artist’s work. In each composition, she centers vibrantly dressed, life-size figures so their gazes directly meet the viewer. Through the use of material and metaphor — like layered threads suggesting how BIPOC individuals “disappear and reappear” — she intertwines notions of community, resilience, and narrative. “I love the connections and stories that the individuals tell but also how the stories narrate the material,” she says.
The gridded backgrounds evoke associations with neighborhood street patterns and the overlapping layers of woven warp and weft. “I also love the metaphor in transparency, layers, and vulnerability,” the artist says, sharing that she sometimes still incorporates cityscapes painted onto the mesh.
Lopez is represented by ACA Galleries. See more on her website and Instagram.
“Reyna” (2025), yarn and spray paint on hook mesh canvas, 96 x 60 inches
“City Girls” (2025), yarn, acrylic, and spray paint on hook mesh canvas, 102 x 168 inches
“Rohan” (2023), yarn and acrylic paint on hook mesh, 96 x 60 inches
“Miami” (2025), yarn and spray paint on hook mesh canvas, 96 x 60 inches
“Rohan” (2023), yarn and acrylic paint on hook mesh, 96 x 60 inches
Detail of “Reyna”
Installation view of “Tayina”
Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member now, and support independent arts publishing.
Hide advertising
Save your favorite articles
Get 15% off in the Colossal Shop
Receive members-only newsletter
Give 1% for art supplies in K-12 classrooms
Join us today!
$7/month
$75/year
Explore membership options
Next article More
150 Shares179 Views
in Art
Ethereal Weavings Merge Architecture and Nature in Élise Peroi’s ‘For Thirsting Flowers’
by Aurelia Butler 8 May 2025, 14:09
Installation view of ‘For Thirsting Flowers.’ All images courtesy of the artist and CARVALHO PARK, New York, shared with permission
Ethereal Weavings Merge Architecture and Nature in Élise Peroi’s ‘For Thirsting Flowers’
May 8, 2025
Art
Kate Mothes
Share
Pin
Email
Bookmark
Imagine standing at a window at dawn as the pale yellow morning light filters through the trees, slowly illuminating flower petals and setting the scene for birdsong. As you move around, the light dapples and changes, and details emerge or disappear around other forms. For Élise Peroi, this sensation provides a starting point for elegant textile sculptures.
Onto graceful wooden frames, the French artist weaves ethereal, layered screens evocative of dreamy portals to nature. “The luminosity of Peroi’s woven paintings is such that we might feel ourselves carried outside to watch the sky brighten, the air soft against our skin,” says Dr. Rebecca Birrell in an essay accompanying Peroi’s solo exhibition, For Thirsting Flowers, at CARVALHO PARK.
Detail of “Pensée I” (2025), painted silk and linen, 36 x 28 x 3 inches
The artist taps into the long tradition of European tapestries, which were used for both decoration and to help keep homes and churches insulated. Stitched by hand, the works could reach architectonic proportions and contain highly detailed figurative and narrative scenes. Peroi departs from customary associations with tapestries by removing the pieces from the wall and creating standalone, self-supporting structures.
She also emphasizes a kind of opening-up of the textile itself. The interactions between warp and weft are loose, delicate, and irregular. And each piece’s depth is determined by the wooden framework, details of which often jut outward in gentle yet willful angles.
Peroi’s sculptures appear to subtly morph as one walks around, merging internal and external perspectives. The artist explores relationships between emptiness, form, perception, and the built environment, hinting at recognizable shapes like flowers and foliage set against muted diamond-shaped geometric patterns or open spaces in the weave. And the frames serve both as display devices and looms—the process and finished piece merged into one.
For Thirsting Flowers continues in Brooklyn through May 23. See more on the artist’s website.
Installation view of ‘For Thirsting Flowers’ at CARVALHO PARK, New York
“La lune” (2025), silk, silver leaf, gouache, acrylic, and linen, 64 x 55 x 6 inches
“Pensée I” (2025), painted silk and linen, 36 x 28 x 3 inches
Installation view of ‘For Thirsting Flowers’ at CARVALHO PARK, New York
Installation view of ‘For Thirsting Flowers’ at CARVALHO PARK, New York
“Songes II” (2022), painted silk and linen, 55 x 78 x 6 inches
Detail of “Songes II”
Installation view of ‘For Thirsting Flowers’ at CARVALHO PARK, New York
Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member now, and support independent arts publishing.
Hide advertising
Save your favorite articles
Get 15% off in the Colossal Shop
Receive members-only newsletter
Give 1% for art supplies in K-12 classrooms
Join us today!
$7/month
$75/year
Explore membership options
Previous articleNext article More
125 Shares189 Views
in Art
An Uncanny Postcard Fit for the Era of Climate Catastrophe
by Aurelia Butler 7 May 2025, 22:07
From left: Sunset, Cyanometer, and Air Pollution postcards
An Uncanny Postcard Fit for the Era of Climate Catastrophe
May 7, 2025
ArtClimateDesignNature
Grace Ebert
Share
Pin
Email
Bookmark
Depending on the day, you might look to the sky and see a sea of pale blue or a radiant sunset creeping toward the horizon. If you’re in a major metropolitan area, though, you might also be met with the characteristic red-brown haze of smog.
Berlin-based artist Macarena Ruiz-Tagle is behind the vibrant Cyanometer and Sunset postcards we’ve featured on Colossal (and that have sold out in our shop several times). But she also created a third version designed for those not-so-bright days.
Tiananmen Square, Beijing (November 2013). Photo by Macarena Ruiz-Tagle
The World Health Organization estimates that 99 percent of people on Earth breathe unsafe air, making Ruiz-Tagle’s Air Pollution postcard perhaps the most fitting for our era of climate catastrophe. While a stark contrast to the brilliant blues, yellows, and oranges of the other two, this design is awash in pale pinks and grays to match that of a gloomy, and even soiled, atmosphere. Like the others, the idea is to hold the work up to the sky and mark the corresponding hue before dropping it in the mail.
The interactive card shifts in meaning depending on whether the opening reveals a misty fog or air thick with chemicals, and it’s part of a growing movement to track climate data in a tangible, grassroots manner. “Separating the visual delight of being immersed in a cloud from the intoxicating reality of breathing heavily polluted air, the postcard evokes both the smog that engulfs global cities and the ethereal beauty of fog,” the artist writes. “In its mesmerizing aesthetic ambiguity, the work sustains a space for contemplation within our troubled atmosphere.”
Find all three postcards in the Colossal Shop, and explore more of Ruiz-Tagle’s work on her website.
Air Pollution postcard
Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member now, and support independent arts publishing.
Hide advertising
Save your favorite articles
Get 15% off in the Colossal Shop
Receive members-only newsletter
Give 1% for art supplies in K-12 classrooms
Join us today!
$7/month
$75/year
Explore membership options
Next article More
113 Shares189 Views
in Art
Isabelle D’s Lush Crocheted Landscapes Intertwine Pain and Pleasure
by Aurelia Butler 6 May 2025, 17:30
From the ‘Bruise’ series. All images courtesy of Gallery Nosco, shared with permission
Isabelle D’s Lush Crocheted Landscapes Intertwine Pain and Pleasure
May 6, 2025
ArtCraft
Grace Ebert
Share
Pin
Email
Bookmark
At seven years old, Isabelle D learned to crochet as a means of supporting her family. Taking lessons from her grandmother, the young artist crafted various items to sell at local markets and set herself on a path she continues to follow today.
From silk, cotton, viscose, and other fibers, Isabelle D crochets innumerable forms evocative of coral, sea sponges, anemones, flowers, molds, spores, and more. Each work comprises a diverse array of sculptural pieces, which nest together in broad landscapes brimming with myriad colors and textures.
“A Officinalis”
The artist’s childhood ingenuity has instilled a commitment to care and resilience that appears both materially and metaphorically in her practice. In her new A Officinalis series, the medicinal, anti-inflammatory properties of the marshmallow plant become a symbol for healing and regeneration. Soft, supple forms in pale pinks and blues are met by fuzzy structures in creamy white yarn, creating a quiet, meditative garden for recovery.
Composed of vibrant reds and purples, the Bruise series takes a converse approach. Color is always critical to Isabelle D’s practice, and these works rely on vibrant, saturated reds, purples, and blues to mimic a damaged body. While the pieces evoke injury, they’re markedly beautiful and a sort of homage to the strength that emerges from trauma.
In the way that crochet requires an even tension to achieve stitches that aren’t too loose or too tight, Isabelle D strives for a similar balance in her practice and rejects the fast pace at which today’s world moves. Instead, she crafts each piece by hand without the help of assistants, immersing herself in the slow, methodical process of inserting the hook and looping it through the yarn.
If you’re in Brussels, stop by Gallery Nosco to see the artist’s solo exhibition, Hanging by a Thread, which runs through May 24.
From the ‘Bruise’ series
From the ‘Bruise’ series
Detail of “A Officinalis”
Detail of “A Officinalis”
Detail of “Mensonge et Vérité”
Detail of “Mensonge et Vérité”
“Mould”
From the ‘Bruise’ series
Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member now, and support independent arts publishing.
Hide advertising
Save your favorite articles
Get 15% off in the Colossal Shop
Receive members-only newsletter
Give 1% for art supplies in K-12 classrooms
Join us today!
$7/month
$75/year
Explore membership options
Previous articleNext article More
163 Shares169 Views
in Art
Adrian Landon Brooks and Jaime Molina Assemble Enigmatic Narratives in ‘No Man’s Land’
by Aurelia Butler 6 May 2025, 15:30
Adrian Landon Brooks. All images courtesy of the artists and Preacher, shared with permission
Adrian Landon Brooks and Jaime Molina Assemble Enigmatic Narratives in ‘No Man’s Land’
May 6, 2025
Art
Kate Mothes
Share
Pin
Email
Bookmark
Within the compartments of reimagined wooden crates or carved sculptures that open on to reveal inner forms, Adrian Landon Brooks and Jaime Molina explore the possibilities of found materials in mixed-media sculptures and paintings. The artists’ duo exhibition No Man’s Land at Preacher Gallery highlights their kindred yet unique approaches.
Brooks brings found materials to life through collaging and layering, using bold lines, color, and pattern to suggest sacred symbols and merge a sense of newness with age. Molina carves his “cuttys” from hunks of timber, pounding swaths of nails to suggest the hair and beards of solemn male figures.
Jaime Molina
An enigmatic narrative undercurrent runs through No Man’s Land, as both artists draw on folk art and craft to explore geometry and assemblage techniques. Cloaked figures and animal-human hybrids nod to the metaphysical in Brooks’ pieces, while Molina’s pensive figures tap into the mysterious of consciousness.
The show highlights how Brooks and Molina have created “a shared world that feels both ancient and brand new—a thoughtful mix of mysticism, memory, and hand-hewn craft,” the gallery says.
No Man’s Land opens on May 8 and continues through May 29 in Austin. Find more on the gallery’s website.
Adrian Landon Brooks
Jaime Molina
Adrian Landon Brooks
Jaime Molina
Adrian Landon Brooks
Jaime Molina
Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member now, and support independent arts publishing.
Hide advertising
Save your favorite articles
Get 15% off in the Colossal Shop
Receive members-only newsletter
Give 1% for art supplies in K-12 classrooms
Join us today!
$7/month
$75/year
Explore membership options
Previous articleNext article More
175 Shares169 Views
in Art
Vibrant Woodblock Prints Traverse a Bygone Japan in ‘Hiroshige: Artist of the Open Road’
by Aurelia Butler 6 May 2025, 14:15
“Tōkaidō Autumn Moon: Restaurants at Kanagawa, Musashi Province” (about 1839),
color woodblock print. © Alan Medaugh. All images courtesy of The British Museum, shared with permission
Vibrant Woodblock Prints Traverse a Bygone Japan in ‘Hiroshige: Artist of the Open Road’
May 6, 2025
ArtHistory
Kate Mothes
Share
Pin
Email
Bookmark
Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858) was born in Japan on the brink of a national transformation. The Edo Period, characterized by the military rule of the Tokugawa Shogunate, had seen economic growth and sustained peace since its establishment in 1603. But 200 years on, the government’s staunch policies, hierarchical structure, and isolation from the outside world was beginning to erode. In 1867, just nine years after Hiroshige’s death, a new emperor restored imperial rule.
Hiroshige: artist of the open road, which just opened at The British Museum, traces the remarkable variety of locations the artist portrayed, from cherry trees and gardens to pleasure boats in the Ryōgoku district of Edo (modern-day Tokyo) to sweeping views of iconic Mt. Fuji. His woodcuts capture everyday life, landscapes, and culture in 19th-century Japan in vibrant color.
“Pleasure Boats at Ryōgoku in the Eastern Capital” (1832-34), color woodblock print triptych. Photo by Matsuba Ryōko. © Alan Medaugh
Along with his contemporary peers like Hokusai, the artist witnessed immense change throughout his lifetime, which he chronicled in thousands of woodblock prints. “As Japan confronted the encroaching outside world, Hiroshige’s calm artistic vision connected with—and reassured —people at every level of society,” the museum says.
Hiroshige often assembled his prints into collections or folios, and artist of the open road includes examples from 100 Famous Views of Edo (1857), The 69 Stations of the Kiso Highway (late 1830s), and more. The exhibition also marks the artist’s first solo show presented by The British Museum and the first in London in more than a quarter-century.
Hiroshige: artist of the open road continues through September 7 in London. You might also enjoy perusing this fantastic ukiyo-e print archive.
“Awa: The Rough Seas at Naruto” from ‘Illustrated Guide to Famous Places in the 60-odd Provinces’ (1855), color woodblock print. © Alan Medaugh
“Seba” from ‘The 69 Stations of the Kiso Highway’ (late 1830s), color woodblock print. © The Trustees of the British Museum
“Evening View of the Eight Scenic Spots of Kanazawa in Musashi Province” (1857), color woodblock print triptych. © Alan Medaugh
“Nihonbashi – Morning Scene” from ‘The 53 Stations of the Tōkaidō’ (c. 1833-35), color woodblock print. © The Trustees of the British Museum
“Mt. Fuji and Otodome Fall” (about 1849-52), color woodblock print. Photo by Matsuba Ryōko. © Alan Medaugh
“The Plum Garden at Kameido” from ‘100 Famous Views of Edo’ (1857), color woodblock print. Photo by Matsuba Ryōko. © Alan Medaugh
Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member now, and support independent arts publishing.
Hide advertising
Save your favorite articles
Get 15% off in the Colossal Shop
Receive members-only newsletter
Give 1% for art supplies in K-12 classrooms
Join us today!
$7/month
$75/year
Explore membership options
Previous articleNext article More

Art

More stories

Celeste’s Immersive Textile Installations Embrace the Warm Intimacy of Home

Caio Marcolini Weaves Delicate Metal Mesh into Spawning Cellular Sculptures

Kandy G. Lopez Embroiders Striking, Life-Size Yarn Portraits Highlighting BIPOC Narratives

Ethereal Weavings Merge Architecture and Nature in Élise Peroi’s ‘For Thirsting Flowers’

An Uncanny Postcard Fit for the Era of Climate Catastrophe

Isabelle D’s Lush Crocheted Landscapes Intertwine Pain and Pleasure

Adrian Landon Brooks and Jaime Molina Assemble Enigmatic Narratives in ‘No Man’s Land’

Vibrant Woodblock Prints Traverse a Bygone Japan in ‘Hiroshige: Artist of the Open Road’

ITALIAN LANGUAGE

ENGLISH LANGUAGE