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Twelve Trailblazing Women Artists Transform Interior Spaces in ‘Dream Rooms’
by Aurelia Butler 6 October 2025, 14:58
Aleksandra Kasuba, “Spectral Passage” (1975), reconstruction of Haus der Kunst München, 2023. Adapted reconstruction for the spaces of M+, 2025. Photo by Dan Leung, © Estate of Aleksandra Kasuba. All images courtesy of M+, Hong Kong, shared with permission
Twelve Trailblazing Women Artists Transform Interior Spaces in ‘Dream Rooms’
October 6, 2025
Art
Kate Mothes
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With its roots in the conceptual and immersive experiments of the Dadaists and Surrealists in the early 20th century, installation art emerged as its own genre in the late 1950s. The approach gained momentum during the next couple of decades, usually revolving around site-specific responses to interior spaces. Taking many forms, installations sometimes incorporate light, sound, projections, performances, and participatory or immersive elements.
“While many of these works were made by women, histories of art havetended to focus on male artists,” says a statement from M+ in Hong Kong, which is currently presenting Dream Rooms: Environments by Women Artists 1950s-Now. The show “addresses this imbalance by foregrounding the visionary contributions of women artists.”
Pinaree Sanpitak, “The House Is Crumbling” (2017/2025), © Pinaree Sanpitak
Dream Rooms features 12 room-scale installations created by artists located across four continents. Originating at Haus der Kunst München in 2023 with the title Inside Other Spaces, the exhibition then traveled to M+, where the artworks have been reconstructed.
Some pieces date back several decades, like Yamazaki Tsuruko’s “Red (shape of mosquito net)” from 1956 and Aleksandra Kasuba’s “Spectral Passage” from 1975. “The exhibition explores forms and ideas that speak to their time, while also encouraging visitors to explore, laugh, wonder, or embrace feelings of unease,” the museum says.
Three new works have been commissioned from three Asian artists specifically for this exhibition. These include Pinaree Sanpitak’s “The House Is Crumbling,” which was first conceived in 2017 and is reimagined for Dream Rooms. Chiharu Shiota’s “Infinite Memory” features a cascade of the artist’s signature red string, and Kimsooja’s atmospheric “To Breathe” is composed of translucent film on window that diffracts the light into prismatic patterns around the museum.
Dream Rooms continues through January 18, 2026. Find more on the museum’s website. You might also enjoy exploring more site-specific work by women artists featured in Groundswell: The Women of Land Art.
Yamazaki Tsuruko, “Red (shape of mosquito net)” (1956), © Estate of Tsuruko Yamazaki. Photo by Agostino Osio–Alto Piano, courtesy of Haus der Kunst München
Kimsooja, “To Breathe” (2022), © Kimsooja, courtesy of Studio Kimsooja
Aleksandra Kasuba, “Spectral Passage” (1975), © Estate of Aleksandra Kasuba. Photo by Constantin Mirbach, courtesy of Haus der Kunst München
Chiharu Shiota, “Internal Line” (2024). Image © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn and Chiharu Shiota, courtesy of the artist
Judy Chicago, “Feather Room” (1966), © Chicago Woodman LLC, Judy Chicago. Photo by Lok Cheng
Pinaree Sanpitak, “The House Is Crumbling” (2017/2025), © Pinaree Sanpitak
Marta Minujín, “¡Revuélquese y viva!” (1964), © Marta Minujín
Lea Lublin, “Penetración / Expulsión (del Fluvio Subtunal)” (1970)
Marta Minujín, “¡Revuélquese y viva!”
(1964), © Marta Minujín.
Photo by Lok Cheng, courtesy of M+, Hong Kong
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Calder Gardens, a Light-Filled Museum and Prairie, Houses the Sculptor’s Work in Philadelphia
by Aurelia Butler 3 October 2025, 13:21
All artwork © Alexander Calder. All photos by Iwan Baan, courtesy of Calder Gardens, shared with permission
Calder Gardens, a Light-Filled Museum and Prairie, Houses the Sculptor’s Work in Philadelphia
October 3, 2025
Art
Grace Ebert
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Alexander Calder’s most widely recognized creation is perhaps the mobile. The lauded artist was a titan of Modernism whose desire to “draw” three-dimensional objects spirited the invention of what went on to become both an art historical achievement and a ubiquitous nursery item. Broadly interested in movement and space, Calder (1898–1976) is often cited as one of the most influential artists of the 20th century.
Now, his work finds a new home in a sprawling museum in Philadelphia, the city where his family lived for generations and where he was born. Located on Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Calder Gardens comprises a 1.8-acre landscape and an 18,000-square-foot building that presents a rotating selection of the artist’s works.
The museum is designed to bring art, architecture, and nature into a constant and ever-evolving conversation. Outdoor sculptures stand amid a lush prairie by Piet Oudolf, while architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron created an interior that interacts with Calder’s sculptures. Large-scale pieces loom inside airy concrete galleries, while smaller mobiles seem to nest perfectly in a well-lit opening.
Calder Gardens is open Wednesday through Monday. Find more on its website.
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Innumerable Dots Form Bright, Bold Gradients in Nano Ponto’s Entirely Handpoked Tattoos
by Aurelia Butler 2 October 2025, 19:02
All images courtesy of Nano Ponto, shared with permission
Innumerable Dots Form Bright, Bold Gradients in Nano Ponto’s Entirely Handpoked Tattoos
October 2, 2025
ArtIllustration
Grace Ebert
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In the hands of Argentinian tattooer Nano Ponto, lush gradients and surreal compositions emerge from layers and layers of tiny dots. Entirely self-taught, Ponto never learned to use the machines typical for many artists working in the medium. He instead embarked on an experimental journey 13 years ago that has since produced a vibrant catalog of designs, from a grayscale eye crying primary colors or a vivid beam shooting from a flying saucer.
Ponto shares that while his process is typically slower than that of artists who utilize machines, his tools and approach are simple. “I just have to layer dots until I reach my desired saturation and look, which varies from skin to skin and the tattoo’s characteristics,” he says. “I use several kinds of needles to play with dot width, resolution, tattooing depth, ink saturation, and a few more variables to create my designs.”
While based in Buenos Aires, Ponto has spent the past few years moving between Europe, Mexico, and the U.S. Travel has been essential to his development from the beginning because most artists work with newer technologies and don’t share the same technical approaches. “Ten years ago, it was key for me to start traveling to meet other handpoked tattoo artists to share experience and knowledge, as there was no one in Argentina I could do this with,” he adds.
Ponto’s latest travels have brought him to Brooklyn, where he’s a guest resident this month at Atelier Eva. Find more about his availability and bold designs on Instagram.
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Explore Trailblazing Street Photography in ‘Faces in the Crowd’ at MFA Boston
by Aurelia Butler 2 October 2025, 17:37
Dawoud Bey, “A Man and Two Women After a Church Service” (1976), photograph, gelatin silver print. Gift of David W. Williams and Eric Ceputis. © Dawoud Bey, photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. All images courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, shared with permission
Explore Trailblazing Street Photography in ‘Faces in the Crowd’ at MFA Boston
October 2, 2025
ArtHistoryPhotography
Kate Mothes
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When playwright Tennessee Williams reflected on the oeuvre of photographer Stephen Shore in 1982, he said, “His work is Nabokovian for me: Exposing so much and yet leaving so much room for your imagination to roam and do what it will.” The sentiment mirrors not only the power of Shore’s work but the capacity of street photography, more broadly, to provoke wonder and curiosity where we least expect it: the everyday.
Shore was among the first to adopt color photography as an artistic medium, traveling throughout America to document quotidian scenes of life in rural towns and big cities alike. His work followed behemoths of the medium like Walker Evans and Robert Frank and set the stage for others who emerged in his footsteps, including Alec Soth, Nan Goldin, and Martin Parr, among many others.
Stephen Shore, “El Paso Street, El Paso, Texas, July 5, 1975” (1975), photograph, chromogenic print. Museum purchase with funds donated by Scott Offen. © Stephen Shore, photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Shore is included in Faces in the Crowd: Street Photography at Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, which explores the ever-evolving techniques and approaches that photographers use to document people and daily life. Seminal works from the 1970s to the 1990s by Shore, Garry Winogrand, Helen Levitt, Dawoud Bey, and Yolanda Andrade, among others, are complemented by more recent contributions to the genre by artists like Parr, Luc Delahaye, Katy Grannan, Amani Willett, and Zoe Strauss.
Today, smartphones with powerful digital cameras have made photography more accessible than ever—and also completely transformed the medium. With people always unabashedly filming—taking photos, making videos, posting to social media—in the city, “photographers are now less concerned with surreptitiously capturing an image and much more likely to collaborate with their subjects in the street,” the MFA says.
The difference between snapshots and art is perhaps partly in intention, although that line is often purposely blurred. Bey’s striking “A Man and Two Women After a Church Service,” for example, captures a seemingly simple scene, yet the composition and clarity are a testament to timing and technical expertise. In what feels like simultaneously a public and private moment, the 1976 image glimpses both a particular scene and an American historical period.
Whether taken decades ago or snapped within the past few years, the images in Faces in the Crowd invite us into each experience. Luc Delahaye’s “Taxi,” for example, captures a solemn, intimate, enigmatic moment as a mother holds her young son in her arms in the back of a vehicle.
Luc Delahaye, “Taxi” (2016), photograph, chromogenic print. Museum purchase with funds donated by Richard and Lucille Spagnuolo. Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Yasuhiro Ishimoto’s crowd photo, taken from the hip, immerses us in the thrum of a city thoroughfare. And Yolanda Andrade captures an uncanny blip when a street performer disappears behind the unsettlingly large head of a puppet. The MFA says, “Drawn to photography’s narrative potential, many employ the camera as a tool of transformation, taking everyday pictures from the ordinary to the strangely beautiful or even ominous.”
Faces in the Crowd opens on October 11 and runs through July 13, 2026. Find more on the museum’s website. You might also enjoy A Sense of Wonder, a monograph of the work of Joel Meyerowitz that was just released by SKIRA.
Yasuhiro Ishimoto “Untitled (71 1879B)” (about 1967), photograph, gelatin silver print, printed in the 1980s. Gift of David W. Williams and Eric Ceputis. Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Cristobal Hara, “Cuenca (Crowded Bus)” (about 1973), photograph, gelatin silver print. Gift of Peter Soriano. © Cristóbal Hara, photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Helen Levitt, “New York” (1976, printed 1993), photograph, dye transfer color print. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Graham Gund. © Helen Levitt Film Documents LLC. Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Yolanda Andrade, “La revisitación o nueva revelación” (1986), silver gelatin print. Museum purchase with funds donated by Elizabeth and Michael Marcus. © Yolanda Andrade, photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Joel Sternfeld, “New York City (# 1), 1976” (1976), photograph, pigment print. Gift of Ralph and Nancy Segall. © Joel Sternfeld, reproduction courtesy of Luhring Augustine Gallery. Courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Michael Spano, Untitled, from the ‘Diptych Series’ (1999), photograph, gelatin silver print. Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Fund for Photography, reproduced with permission. Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Matthew Connors, “Pyongyang” from the series ‘Unanimous Desires’ (2013), photograph, inkjet print. Museum purchase with funds donated by Scott Offen. Courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
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World War II Journal Entries Float in a Web of Blood-Red Yarn in Chiharu Shiota’s ‘Diary’
by Aurelia Butler 2 October 2025, 13:19
Installation view of ‘Chiharu Shiota: Two Home Countries’ at Japan Society Gallery, New York, 2025. Photos by Go Sugimoto. All images courtesy of the artist and Japan Society Gallery, shared with permission
World War II Journal Entries Float in a Web of Blood-Red Yarn in Chiharu Shiota’s ‘Diary’
October 2, 2025
ArtHistory
Kate Mothes
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Commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, Berlin-based artist Chiharu Shiota presents a poignant suite of large-scale works in Two Home Countries at Japan Society Gallery. That artist is known for her immersive string installations, inviting us into emotive, atmospheric experiences that tap into both universal and deeply personal narratives.
In Two Home Countries, viewers enter a vivid world shaped by red thread, redolent of intertwined veins and blood vessels that attach to the floor, take on the shapes of houses, and spread through an entire room with a cloud-like aura of red—filled with written pages. Themes of memory, mortality, connection, identity, and belonging weave through Shiota’s pieces, exploring “how pain, displacement, boundaries, and existential uncertainty shape the human condition and our understanding of self,” the gallery says.
Detail of “Diary” (2025) in ‘Chiharu Shiota: Two Home Countries’ at Japan Society Gallery, New York, 2025
An expansive, room-sized work titled “Diary,” which is based on an earlier installation and commissioned anew for Two Home Countries, incorporates a dense web of yarn in which float pages of journals that once belonged to Japanese soldiers. Some were also penned by German civilians in the post-war era. “The accumulated pages reveal an expansive record of shared human existence across national boundaries,” the gallery says.
“When the body is gone, the objects which surrounded them remain behind,” Shiota says in a statement. “As I wander the stalls of the markets in Berlin, I find especially personal items like photographs, old passports, and personal diaries. Once, I found a diary from 1946, which was an intimate insight into the person’s life and experiences.” For Shiota, the power of these objects are revealed in how she feels the presence of writer’s “inner self.”
Two Home Countries is on view through January 11 in New York City. Plan your visit on the Japan Society’s website, and find more on Shiota’s site and Instagram.
Installation view of ‘Chiharu Shiota: Two Home Countries’ at Japan Society Gallery, New York, 2025
Installation view of ‘Chiharu Shiota: Two Home Countries’ at Japan Society Gallery, New York, 2025
Installation view of ‘Chiharu Shiota: Two Home Countries’ at Japan Society Gallery, New York, 2025
Installation view of ‘Chiharu Shiota: Two Home Countries’ at Japan Society Gallery, New York, 2025
Detail of “Two Home Countries” (2025) in ‘Chiharu Shiota: Two Home Countries’ at Japan Society Gallery, New York, 2025
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Lakota and Western Art History Converge in Dyani White Hawk’s Vibrant Works
by Aurelia Butler 1 October 2025, 19:00
“Wopila | Lineage II” (2023), acrylic, glass beads, synthetic sinew, and thread on aluminum panel, 96 x 120 inches. Gochman Family Collection. Photo by Rik Sferra. All images courtesy of Alexander Gray Associates, New York, and Bockley Gallery, Minneapolis, shared with permission
Lakota and Western Art History Converge in Dyani White Hawk’s Vibrant Works
October 1, 2025
Art
Kate Mothes
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Throughout history, those who wield the most power or resources are typically the ones whose stories are represented in textbooks, passed down through generations, and etched into our collective consciousness. Without intentional effort, it can be difficult to hear more than a single narrative.
In art history, the reality is much the same. The canon has always privileged white male artists, from titans of the Renaissance like Michelangelo to bad-boy American Modernists like Jackson Pollock. The foundations of 19th-century American landscape painting, for example, are inextricable from the belief in Manifest Destiny, as the American government violently expanded westward. And Western painting and sculpture have historically reigned supreme in the market-driven hallows of galleries and auction houses. But what of the incredible breadth of—namely Indigenous—art forms that have long been overlooked?
“Visiting” (2024), acrylic, glass beads, thread, and synthetic sinew on aluminum panel with a quartz base, 120 x 15.5 x 15.5 inches (base 5 x 24 x 24 inches). Collection of the Denver Art Museum. Photo by Rik Sferra
For Sičáŋǧu Lakota artist Dyani White Hawk, the construction of American art history lies at the core of her multidisciplinary practice. “She lays bare the exclusionary hierarchies that have long governed cultural legitimacy, authority, value, and visibility,” says a joint statement from Alexander Gray Associates and Bockley Gallery. “In this light, White Hawk reframes Indigenous art and Western abstraction as inseparable practices—linked by a shared history that dominant narratives have labored to separate and obscure.”
Pablo Picasso is credited with the saying, “Good artists copy, great artists steal.” Seminal paintings like “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” and others created in the early 1900s would not exist if it were not for his fascination with African masks. White Hawk draws a similar parallel between the 20th-century Color Field and Minimalism movements to highlight the influence of Native American art forms in the evolution of these styles. She prompts viewers to consider how these notions shape our aesthetic perceptions and judgment while also considering the role of cultural memory and community.
White Hawk’s work spans painting, sculpture, photography, performance, and installations. Alongside oil and acrylic paint, she incorporates materials commonly used in Lakota art forms, like beads, porcupine quills, and buckskin.
“I strive to create honest, inclusive works that draw from the breadth of my life experiences,” White Hawk says in a statement, merging influences from Native and non-Native, urban, academic, and cultural education systems. She continues: “This allows me to start from center, deepening my own understanding of the intricacies of self and culture, correlations between personal and national history, and Indigenous and mainstream art histories.”
“Nourish” (2024), ceramic tile installation of handmade tiles by Mercury Mosaics, 174 x 369 1/2 inches. Collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from the Whitney Acquisition Fund 2024.13
Mirroring the meditative labor and incredible attention to detail required to create traditional Lakota artworks—from elaborately beaded garments to abstract buckskin paintings—White Hawk creates energetic installations that are bold and confrontational. Vibrant geometric patterns are direct and visceral in a way that “unsettles the categories of Eurocentric art history,” the galleries say.
White Hawk notes that her mixed-media canvases honor “the importance of the contributions of Lakota women and Indigenous artists to our national artistic history…as well as the ways in which Indigenous artists helped shape the evolution of the practices of Western artists who were inspired by their work.”
“Nourish,” an installation that spans nearly 31 feet wide and 14.5 feet tall, comprises thousands of handmade ceramic tiles that visually reference Lakota beadwork and quillwork. Permanently installed at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the piece enters into a dialogue with the history of American Modernism through painters such as Marsden Hartley and Pollock, who are credited as trailblazers of American abstraction and yet were indelibly influenced by Native American art.
Detail of “Visiting.” Collection of the Denver Art Museum. Photo by Rik Sferra
“At its core, White Hawk’s practice is sustained by ancestral respect and guided by value systems that center relationality and care for all life,” the galleries say. “By addressing inequities affecting Native communities, she creates opportunities for cross-cultural connection and prompts a critical examination of how artistic and national histories have been constructed. Her work invites viewers to evaluate current societal value systems and their capacity to support equitable futures.”
Minneapolis-based Bockley Gallery, which has represented White Hawk for more than a decade, has recently announced co-representation of the artist with New York City-based Alexander Gray Associates, where she’ll present a solo exhibition in fall 2026. If you’re in Minneapolis, Love Language opens on October 18 at the Walker Art Center and continues through February 15. The show then travels to Remai Modern in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, where it will be on view from April 25 to September 27, 2026. See more on White Hawk’s website.
Installation view of ‘Whitney Biennial 2022: Quiet as It’s Kept (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, April 6 to September 5, 2022). “Wopila | Lineage” (2022), acrylic, glass beads, and synthetic sinew on aluminum panel, 96 9/16 x 168 3/8 inches. Photo by Ron Amstutz
“Carry IV” (2024), buckskin, synthetic sinew and thread, glass beads, brass sequins, copper vessel, copper ladle, and acrylic paint, 123 x 12 x 10 inches. Collection of the Baltimore Museum of Art. Photo by Rik Sferra
Detail of “Carry IV.” Collection of the Baltimore Museum of Art. Photo by Rik Sferra
Installation view of “I Am Your Relative” (2020) in ‘Sharing the Same Breath,’ John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI, 2023. Courtesy of the John Michael Kohler Arts Center
Detail of “Visiting.” Collection of the Denver Art Museum. Photo by Rik Sferra
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Craig & Karl’s ‘Mateys’ Bring Vibrancy and Joy to Bridges in Brisbane and Beyond
by Aurelia Butler 1 October 2025, 17:00
Detail of “Converge.” Photo by Alex Chomicz
Craig & Karl’s ‘Mateys’ Bring Vibrancy and Joy to Bridges in Brisbane and Beyond
October 1, 2025
ArtDesign
Kate Mothes
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In vibrant colors, patterns, and shapes, the immersive works of Craig & Karl invite us to relish moments of joy and surprise. While Craig is based in New York, and Karl is based in London, the two collaborate across the pond—and around the world—to produce multimedia installations that revitalize urban spaces and celebrate the power of play.
As part of the 2025 Brisbane Festival, Craig & Karl created a pair of large-scale inflatable interventions on two of the city’s bridges, both riffing on the idea of the arch as passageway. Additionally, numerous illustrations, interactive sculptures, and inflatable “Mateys” — a series of quirky characters with expressive faces — pop up on buildings and sidewalks to enable joyful encounters as part of the expansive, city-wide exhibition titled Rear Vision.
“Walk This Way” (2025), Kangaroo Point Bridge, Brisbane. Photo by JD Lin
Collectively titled “Walk This Way,” the bridge installations encourage Brisbanites to see their city with fresh eyes. The expressive, flexible characters are also immanently relatable for viewers of all ages. “The Mateys serve as companions that help foster community and shared experiences, welcoming us into different corners of the city,” says a festival statement.
Craig & Karl are known for their vivid participatory projects, which range from mini-golf courses to playgrounds to murals. The artists initially met 30 years ago while studying at Griffith University in Brisbane, and since, their collaborative practice has included partnerships with global brands and publications like Adidas, Nike, Apple, Chanel, The New Yorker, Variety, and more.
While the bridge installations came to a close at the end of September, you can still stroll along the Public Art Trail through October 20 to spot Craig & Karl’s sculptures and installations in unexpected places. Then, drop by the exhibition Double Vision at the Griffith University Art Museum, which continues through January 7.
Plot your course on the Brisbane Festival website, and see more of the artists’ projects on their site and Instagram.
“Mateys” (2025), part of ‘Rear Vision’ Public Art Trail, Brisbane. Photo by Claudia Baxter
“Mateys” (2025), part of ‘Rear Vision’ Public Art Trail, Brisbane. Photo by Alex Chomicz
Detail of “Converge.” Photo by Alex Chomicz
“Converge” (2025), Neville Bonner Bridge, Brisbane. Photo by JD Lin
“Prismatic,” Tsuen Wan, Hong Kong
Detail of “Unfold,” Suzhou, China
“Cosmos,” Melbourne Central, Melbourne
Detail of “Cosmos”
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Monumental Tapestries by Jacqueline Surdell Invoke Forests as Portals to the Divine
by Aurelia Butler 1 October 2025, 14:46
“Suddenly, she was hell-bent and ravenous (after Giotto)” (2024), nylon cord, steel, polyester fabric, steel spool top, steel chain and meat hooks, 165 (body) x 252 (pole to pole) x 7 inches. All images courtesy of Secrist | Beach, shared with permission
Monumental Tapestries by Jacqueline Surdell Invoke Forests as Portals to the Divine
October 1, 2025
Art
Grace Ebert
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Jacqueline Surdell (previously) likens her process of looping and knotting rope to painting. She considers a roving line of interwoven fiber to be that of a gesture, one that might surge and swell across a canvas.
A lifelong athlete, Surdell gravitates toward a demanding, physical practice that often turns her body into a shuttle as she weaves on an oversized loom from a lift. Monumental steel bars stretching more than 20 feet wide hold the resulting hefty compositions of industrial nylon and cotton cording, which the artist creates through repetitive movement not unlike that which goes into training for competition.
Detail of “Suddenly, she was hell-bent and ravenous (after Giotto)” (2024), nylon cord, steel, polyester fabric, steel spool top, steel chain, and meat hooks, 165 (body) x 252 (pole to pole) x 7 inches
Surdell incorporates a range of influences into her latest body of work on view at Secrist | Beach in Chicago. For her solo exhibition, The Conversion: Rings, Rupture, and the Forest Archive, the artist takes transformation and reverence as a starting point. In particular, she draws on what she calls “a cosmic connection” to her great uncle Paul, with whom she shares a birthday and who died in a forested area during the Battle of the Bulge.
Connecting nature to narrative, the artist also loops in her Catholic upbringing and biblical undertones, particularly as it relates to places of epiphany. She considers forests to be “sacred thresholds,” and in this line of thinking, her dynamic works become portals to the divine. “Looking out into the forest is very different from a painting of the forest because it is more about storytelling and mythmaking,” she shares in a video interview.
Printed polyester fabric makes several appearances in this new body of work. A photographic snapshot of sunlight streaming through a lush forest canopy augments the darkened “Penance of Leaves,” while “Paul” features a vivid sunset. Nature, for Surdell, is not passive. Instead, it’s an active participant in preserving collective memory and an inviting site for transcendence.
The Conversion is on view through November 15. Find more from Surdell on Instagram.
“Paul” (2025), nylon cord, cotton cord, polyester fabric, and steel, 90 x 140 x 12 inches
Detail of “Penance of Leaves” (2025), nylon cord, cotton cord, polyester fabric, and steel, 74 x 81 x 15 inches
“Penance of Leaves” (2025), nylon cord, cotton cord, polyester fabric, and steel, 74 x 81 x 15 inches
Detail of “My Roman Empire” (2025), cotton cord, nylon cord, and steel, 74 x 90 x 12 inches
“Desire Path” (2025), nylon cord, cotton cord, polyester fabric, steel, 49 x 73 x 7 inches
“My Roman Empire” (2025), cotton cord, nylon cord, and steel, 74 x 90 x 12 inches
Detail of “Suddenly, she was hell-bent and ravenous (after Giotto)” (2024), nylon cord, steel, polyester fabric, steel spool top, steel chain, and meat hooks, 165 (body) x 252 (pole to pole) x 7 inches
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Art

More stories

Twelve Trailblazing Women Artists Transform Interior Spaces in ‘Dream Rooms’

Calder Gardens, a Light-Filled Museum and Prairie, Houses the Sculptor’s Work in Philadelphia

Innumerable Dots Form Bright, Bold Gradients in Nano Ponto’s Entirely Handpoked Tattoos

Explore Trailblazing Street Photography in ‘Faces in the Crowd’ at MFA Boston

World War II Journal Entries Float in a Web of Blood-Red Yarn in Chiharu Shiota’s ‘Diary’

Lakota and Western Art History Converge in Dyani White Hawk’s Vibrant Works

Craig & Karl’s ‘Mateys’ Bring Vibrancy and Joy to Bridges in Brisbane and Beyond

Monumental Tapestries by Jacqueline Surdell Invoke Forests as Portals to the Divine

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