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    In Vivid Reliquaries, Stan Squirewell Layers Anonymous Portraits and Patterned Textiles

    All images courtesy of Stan Squirewell and Claire Oliver Gallery, shared with permission

    In Vivid Reliquaries, Stan Squirewell Layers Anonymous Portraits and Patterned Textiles

    March 28, 2025

    ArtPhotography

    Grace Ebert

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    Through intimate, mixed-media collages, Stan Squirewell excavates the stories of those who might otherwise be lost in anonymity. The artist gathers images from the Smithsonian’s archives and from friends and family that he then reinterprets with vibrant prints and patterns. Layering unknown pasts with present-day additions, Squirewell explores how everyday traditions and rituals remain through generations.

    His new body of work, Robitussin, Hotcombs & Grease, invokes ubiquitous items like the over-the-counter decongestant and hair care. “Growing up, I was shaped by elders around me, and everyday objects like Robitussin, hotcombs, and grease became vessels for the rituals that anchored me to my heritage,” the artist says. “These items transcend their mundane uses: they embody traditions passed down through generations, grounding me in a collective identity.”

    “Girls on Saturn” (2025)

    Squirewell cuts and collages images and fabrics from his collection before photographing the composition, which then undergoes a digital editing process. An elaborate frame complements each piece with charred shou sugi ban edges—a Japanese burning technique—and hand-carved details. The sides bear various inscriptions connecting past and present, including lines from Langston Hughes’ poems and glyphs from ancestral African languages that have fallen out of use.

    Because the identities and histories of many of the subjects are unknown, Squirewell’s work adds a new relevance to their images. How have daily, domestic practices and the legacies of previous generations informed the present? And how do these traditions create a broader collective experience? Rooted in these questions, the dignified works become reliquaries that honor what’s been passed down and how that continues to inform life today.

    Robitussin, Hotcombs & Grease is on view through May 24 at Claire Oliver Gallery in Harlem. Find more from Squirewell on Instagram.

    “Teddy” (2024), artist-printed photos collaged with paint and glitter in a hand-carved shou sugi ban frame, 43 x 35 x 3 inches

    “Teddy’s Lil Sisters” (2024), artist-printed photos collaged with paint and glitter in a hand-carved shou sugi ban frame, 29 x 24 x 2 inches

    “Girls on Saturn” (2025)

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    Inhabitants of a Fictional World Search for Understanding in Damien Cifelli’s Vibrant Paintings

    “A guide to the Unknown Other.” All images courtesy of Damien Cifelli, shared with permission

    Inhabitants of a Fictional World Search for Understanding in Damien Cifelli’s Vibrant Paintings

    March 28, 2025

    Art

    Kate Mothes

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    In Tarogramma, the imaginary world conceived by Damien Cifelli (previously) as a setting for his vibrant paintings, plants are plentiful, but animals don’t exist. The landscapes are as diverse and enigmatic as its inhabitants, who commune with bodies of water, traverse the desert in a suit, and size up an enigmatic object on a dinner plate.

    Cifelli’s stylish figures investigate their environment to try to understand their place within it. Many of the paintings shown here were recently exhibited at Spinello Projects in Miami, emphasizing the artist’s recent focus on analyzing what life is like in this fictive world.

    “I make a map in my mind but each time I raise my head it disappears”

    “In Tarogramma, symbols are imbued with disassociated meanings unrelated to what we think they could be,” says a statement for his show. “Iconography, such as flags or emblems, represent regions that exist not as physical places but as ideas or states of mind.” This world is devoid of ethnic, cultural, or gender hierarchies, and identity is fluid and chosen, which encourages constant transformation.

    Occasionally, Cifelli’s paintings reference famous artworks like “Wanderer before the Sea of Ice,” which nods to German Romanticist artist Caspar David Friedrich’s 1818 painting, “Wanderer Above a Sea of Fog.” Capturing the solipsism of the 19th-century work, Cifelli translates the view into an arctic scene of jagged ice, with the central figure wearing a coat decorated in symbols evocative of biological forms.

    Explore more on Cifelli’s website and Instagram.

    “The trick is to know what you are looking for”

    “A new route to the interior”

    “Everything that happens will happen today”

    “Dream Animal”

    “Green Fingers, Unit 14”

    “Infinite Ground”

    “At the foot of the mountain, the land speaks”

    “Wanderer before the Sea of Ice”

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    Krzysztof Grzybacz’s ‘Floral Compositions’ Are Tender Portrayals of Togetherness

    “Yellow, White, Orange, Pink, Blue, Yellow, White” (2025), diptych, oil on canvas, 200 × 320 centimeters. Photos by Bartosz Zalewski. All images courtesy of Krzysztof Grzybacz and Galeria Dawid Radziszewski, Vienna, shared with permission

    Krzysztof Grzybacz’s ‘Floral Compositions’ Are Tender Portrayals of Togetherness

    March 27, 2025

    Art

    Kate Mothes

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    Arranged by size and hue, the blooms in Krzysztof Grzybacz’s large-scale oil paintings appear in comfortable togetherness, each individual’s features amplified by its placement next to those that differ. His Floral Compositions series organizes the flowers against swaths of green fabric, exploring their potent symbolism.

    Grzybacz taps into the age-old tradition of flowers in oil, rendering their petals and stems in vibrant hues that capture their unique outlines and textures. Rooted in still life, his compositions are underpinned by abstraction and the artist’s fascination with layering and perspective.

    “Yellow” (2025), oil on canvas, 200 × 160 centimeters

    The works in Grzybacz’s current solo exhibition at Galeria Dawid Radziszewski also reference the queer community. “Flowers are like people: they pose, search for their own space, and mark out boundaries,” says a statement from the gallery. The artist nods to the role of order and systems, while also emphasizing the importance of celebrating diversity.

    Grouped together in front of textile folds, oblique grids, or distorted human features, the artist invokes the power of alliances through a sense of tenderness, curiosity, and pliability.

    Floral Compositions continues through March 29 in Vienna. Find more on Grzybacz’s website and Instagram.

    “Blue, yellow, orange, white, pink” (2025), oil on canvas, 100 × 80 centimeters

    “Orange, blue, pink, yellow, white, maroon, purple” (2025), oil on canvas, 200 × 160 centimeters

    “White, Yellow, Orange, Blue, Purple” (2025), oil on canvas, 200 × 160 centimeters

    “Blue, White, Yellow, Orange, Pink” (2025), oil on canvas, 100 × 80 centimeters

    “White, maroon, orange, yellow, blue” (2025), oil on canvas, 70 × 60 centimeters

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    Tia Keobounpheng’s Vibrating Textile Geometries Merge Modernism and Sámi Lineage

    “WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE no9” (2023), 48 x 72 inches. All images courtesy of Tia Keobounpheng, shared with permission

    Tia Keobounpheng’s Vibrating Textile Geometries Merge Modernism and Sámi Lineage

    March 27, 2025

    ArtCraft

    Kate Mothes

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    Tia Keobounpheng learned to weave in Oulu, Finland, when she was 18 years old. Seated beside two older Finnish women in a community weaving center, she worked for hours, hardly speaking a word. Two decades later, following university studies in weaving, architecture, and design, the Minnesota-based artist’s memory of her first lesson connects her to her ancestral land and its time-honored craft traditions.

    On wood panels, Keobounpheng weaves colorful threads to create precise geometries in vibrating color. She says, “My exploration into geometry coincided with learning that in my known familial histories, there was a suppressed Sámi lineage through my great-grandmother’s line, thereby completely changing the narrative of our Finnish heritage.”

    Detail of “THREADS no6”

    The Sámi people of northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia’s Kola Peninsula are an Indigenous group with their own unique languages and a traditional, semi-nomadic livelihood that includes practices like reindeer and sheep herding, coastal fishing, and fur trapping.

    Historically, as the Scandinavians remained mostly south and Sámi communities lived in the north, contact was uncommon. But by the 19th century, Scandinavian governments began to assert sovereignty over the north, targeting the Sámi, who were increasingly viewed as “primitive” or “backward.” Their language was outlawed and many cultural customs suppressed as they were forced to assimilate into Scandinavian society.

    During the pandemic, Keobounpheng was helping her son during a distance-learning 4th-grade geometry class, and a particular phrase caught her attention. “Geo means earth, so geometry is just measuring the earth,” the teacher said.

    “These words… changed my worldview and reminded me that underneath rigid linear laws, an entire foundation of forgotten circular consciousness exists,” the artist says. “Aside from the powerful conceptual connections I was able to draw from geometry as a visual language to understand and express a circular, expansive worldview, the physical motions of spinning the compass awakened something deep within me.”

    “THREADS no6” (202), 24 x 18 inches

    Keobounpheng’s compositions are both exact and interwoven, as shapes blend into other shapes, neither fully independent nor simply an all-over pattern. She describes the physicality of moving a needle and thread back and forth through paper or wood as a means of metaphorically stitching this worldview into her muscle memory.

    The artist’s father is a self-trained architect, and from him, she adopted a modernist lens. “Robert Motherwell, Mark Rothko, and Josef and Anni Albers were early favorites of mine in my teen and young adult years,” she tells Colossal. “These days, Agnes Martin, Hilma af Klint, and Sámi artist Outi Pieski are my anchors of inspiration.”

    Each piece requires initial planning to map the geometry, drill holes, select the color palette, and begin threading a black-and-white framework. But often, “all of my best intentions or visions for what the work will be start to loosen and sometimes fly away,” she says. “There is always a point, with every piece, where I must surrender my plan and give way to the threads.”

    The artist’s work will be on view in Weinstein Hammons Gallery’s booth at EXPO Chicago at the end of April. She is also currently participating in Nordic Echoes — Tradition in Contemporary Art at Scandinavia House, which runs from April 5 to August 2 in New York City and also includes work by Sonja Peterson. Find more on Keobounpheng’s website and Instagram.

    “THREADS no19” (2024), 16 x 16 inches

    “WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE no15” (2024), 24 x 18 inches

    “THREADS no25” (2025)

    Detail of “THREADS no25”

    “THREADS no18” (2024), 16 x 16 inches

    “THREADS no7” (2022), 24 x 18 inches

    “CIRCLE ROUND no5” (2023), 12 x 12 inches

    “WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE no13” (2024), 96 x 48 inches

    Reverse of “THREADS no25”

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    Tropical Flowers and Prickly Cacti Leap from Lili Arnold’s Vibrant Block Prints

    “Strelitzia Reginae, a.k.a. Bird of Paradise III.” All images courtesy of Lili Arnold, shared with permission

    Tropical Flowers and Prickly Cacti Leap from Lili Arnold’s Vibrant Block Prints

    March 26, 2025

    ArtIllustrationNature

    Kate Mothes

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    Every year, Lili Arnold’s mother would block-print holiday cards to send to family and friends. When she was old enough to wield a carving tool, Arnold began to make her own, too. But it wasn’t until college, when she took an Intro to Printmaking class, that she became enthralled with the practice’s myriad methods.

    Block printing specifically captured Arnold’s attention because of its relatively simple components and technique—no giant presses required. The block can expand in scale, incorporate different colors, or be layered with numerous pressings.

    “Strelitzia Reginae, a.k.a. Bird of Paradise”

    “I think what I love most about the process is seeing my first print after so many hours of sketching, planning, carving, and troubleshooting,” Arnold tells Colossal. “There’s a lot of thought and time invested in the steps before the actual print becomes real, so when I see that first reveal, it’s both terrifying and thrilling.”

    Arnold’s compositions often revolve around natural subjects, especially botanicals like cacti and tropical flowers. She is fascinated by the environment’s infinite interaction of colors, textures, patterns, and symmetry.

    “There’s such vast diversity of plant life out there, each ecosystem encapsulating unique details and wonders,” she says. “We as artists and botanical patrons have the pleasure of translating and expressing our appreciation of this beauty through our artwork, writing, gardening, exploring, and beyond.”

    Follow updates on Arnold’s Instagram, and browse prints available for purchase in her shop.

    “Zantedeschia Albomaculata, a.k.a. Spotted Calla Lily III”

    “Palm Study III”

    “Emergence of Spring”

    “Opuntia Ficus-Indica, a.k.a. Prickly Pear”

    Blocks ready for printing

    Pulling “Opuntia Ficus-Indica, a.k.a. Prickly Pear”

    Block for “Banksia Prolata”

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    Delicate Ecosystems Converge in Sonja Peterson’s Intricate Cut Paper Compositions

    Detail of “Empire Builder.” All images courtesy of Sonja Peterson, shared with permission

    Delicate Ecosystems Converge in Sonja Peterson’s Intricate Cut Paper Compositions

    March 25, 2025

    ArtClimate

    Kate Mothes

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    Inspired by nature’s myriad forms and relationships, Minneapolis-based artist Sonja Peterson creates sprawling scenes from intricately cut paper. Working intuitively while focusing on the environment and our place within it, she merges organic motifs and animals with humans and historical references.

    The inherent simplicity of a blank piece of paper is a compelling attribute for Peterson, who is fascinated by the possibilities of texture, pattern, and the relationship between positive and negative space. Originally, the artist made drawings on large sheets, which she began to cut into in order to rearrange compositional elements. She became increasingly interested in the art of the incision and removed other media altogether.

    “Lost and Searching”

    “My choice of paper echoes the idea of the fragility that I want to convey as I look at the precariousness of ecological systems,” Peterson tells Colossal. “The works’ structural integrity is, at times, reliant on its interconnectivity; if elements disconnect, the entire system is in threat of collapsing.”

    An overarching theme in Peterson’s work revolves around interconnection—both natural and human-made—highlighting how our global trade systems, manufacturing, and agriculture are fundamentally reliant on our environment, even as they contribute to an ever-growing climate crisis. She often combines human interactions with botanical details, like a sunken ship in “Lost and Searching” or the salient history of European colonialist expansion in “Empire Builder.”

    The artist is interested in our “global systems as something of untamed wonder, a gaze that was once reserved for the natural world,” she says. She often juxtaposes botanical details with human-made structures, such as ships or buildings. “Nature is now often seen as contained patchwork or a constructed binary to a technological world that is now the wild frontier.”

    Peterson’s work is currently on view in Nordic Echoes — Tradition in Contemporary Art at Scandinavia House, which runs from April 5 to August 2 in New York City. The show celebrates contemporary folk arts from the Upper Midwest, featuring more than 50 works by 24 artists. Find more on the Peterson’s website and Instagram.

    “The Undergound Plot of the Royal Pommes Frites,” cut paper and acrylic on wallpaper, approximately 72 x 50 inches

    Detail of “The Undergound Plot of the Royal Pommes Frites”

    Detail of “Lost and Searching,” cut paper and acrylic on wall, 114 x 50 inches

    “Empire Builder” (2022), hand-cut paper and acrylic on wall, 106 x 64 inches

    “Ghost Ship Part 1” (2022), cut paper, 112 x 50 inches. All images courtesy of Sonja Peterson, shared with permission

    “Inferno Seeks Shelter.” Photo by E. G. Schempf

    “Layered Losses,” hand-cut paper, 50 x 58 inches

    Detail of “Lost and Searching”

    Installing “Navigator,” cut paper. Photo by Jennifer Phelps

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    Traverse Hieronymus Bosch’s ‘The Garden of Earthly Delights’ with Smarthistory

    Hieronymus Bosch, “The Garden of Earthly Delights” (1490-1510), oil on oak panels, 81 x 152 inches. Image courtesy of the Museo del Prado, Madrid

    Traverse Hieronymus Bosch’s ‘The Garden of Earthly Delights’ with Smarthistory

    March 24, 2025

    Art

    Kate Mothes

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    Have you ever wondered why two large owls sit on either side of the central panel in “The Garden of Earthly Delights” by Hieronymus Bosch? Or perhaps you’ve noticed the strangely fleshy, sculptural fountains rising from the bodies of water—or are they stone? Why is the right side so dark, and who are all these people anyway?

    Narrated by Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, Smarthistory’s latest video tours the uncanny landscapes of Bosch’s famous triptych, which continues to “confound our expectations of Christian art of the Renaissance.”

    Smarthistory is a small nonprofit that collaborates with hundreds of art historians, curators, archaeologists, and more, who are committed to making art history as accessible as possible. Through essays, conversations, and videos, the organization presents scholarly information in engaging, digestible, yet analytically rigorous lessons.

    For Smarthistory’s video examining some of the motifs in “The Garden of Earthly Delights,” Harris and Zucker dive into some of the most alluring details of Bosch’s historic painting, parsing mysteries that have persisted since its creation at the turn of the 16th century.

    The overarching narrative of Bosch’s masterpiece remains largely an enigma. “Although it is wonderfully playful and wonderfully inventive and just an incredible thing to look at, it would have been deeply troubling to Bosch’s generation,” Zucker says. “His society would have looked at this as sinful, even though the people that are being represented here didn’t understand sin.” (More on that in a minute.)

    An anomaly of its genre, the painting was commissioned by Engelbert II, a wealthy member of the court of the Duke of Burgundy, probably intending it for his palace. The work consists of three panels in the style of an altarpiece, with two half-size panels on either side of a central composition, which fold inward like two doors to reveal another painting on the exterior.

    Detail of the left panel portraying God introducing Eve to Adam

    In Bosch’s case, he depicted a crystalline sphere in grisaille, or all-gray, which portrays an overview of the earth with God perched in the upper left-hand corner, readying to make something of the lackluster orb. Two biblical phrases, “for he spake and it was done,” from Psalm 33, and “for he commanded and they were created,” from Psalm 148, reference Creation.

    Turning over the panels, as if opening the cover of a book, we enter an otherworldly realm where humans and beasts mingle with oversized animals, fruit, and surreal structures. On the left, Adam and Eve are introduced by a young God, before Eve was tempted to eat the forbidden fruit hanging in the Garden of Eden. In the center, dozens of nude figures frolic, eat, engage in sexual activities, forage, swim, and fly. On the right is hell.

    “One of the most compelling theories is that the central panel is an alternate story,” Zucker says. “What if the Temptation had not taken place? What if Adam and Eve had remained innocent and had populated the world? And so is it possible that what we’re seeing is that reality played out in Bosch’s imagination?”

    Exterior of “The Garden of Earthly Delights” shown with panels closed

    Two oversized owls, symbolic of the presence of evil, flank the central panel. While people appear unashamed of their selves or actions, a sense of uneasiness pervades the scene, balancing the dichotomies of paradise and hell; holiness and sin.

    “The largest figure is a figure which art historians call the ‘tree man,’” Dr. Harris says. “His legs look like the branches of trees with more branches growing from them. But where we might see his feet, we see two unsteady boats in the water with figures in them, suggesting that there’s an inherent instability to this figure who can barely balance in this way.”

    Smarthistory’s video illustrates compositional tools that provide clues to underlying narrative and metaphor, like the way the “tree man” appears to look back across space at Adam and Eve—specifically Adam’s lustful gaze as the representation of humankind’s origin. “In this representation, we don’t need the apple. We don’t need the serpent. All we need is Adam’s lustful gaze as he is introduced to Eve,” Dr. Zucker says. And the rest, so to speak, is history.

    Explore more from the world of art on Smarthistory’s website. You might also enjoy this fantastical parade in The Netherlands devoted entirely to Bosch and Roberto Benavidez’s Bosch-inspired piñatas.

    Detail of the central panel

    Detail from the right-hand panel depicting Hell

    Detail of the central panel

    Detail of the central panel

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    In ‘Electric Garden,’ Ricky Boscarino Leads a Tour of His Whimsical Handbuilt Home

    © 2024 Stockton University

    In ‘Electric Garden,’ Ricky Boscarino Leads a Tour of His Whimsical Handbuilt Home

    March 24, 2025

    ArtFilm

    Kate Mothes

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    In December 1988, artist Ricky Boscarino was on the hunt for real estate. Not just any property would do, though. “It was really my boyhood ambition to built my dream house, where literally all my dreams could come true,” he says in the short documentary “Electric Garden.” Little did he know that over the course of the next four decades, a dilapidated hunting cabin would transform into a veritable way of life.

    Luna Parc emerged on a wooded six-acre parcel in northwestern New Jersey and has been in progress continually since 1989. “Family lore is that we were carpenters for many, many generations,” Boscarino says. “My whole life became about making things with metal, wood, glass, fabric, concrete.”

    With numerous additions and labyrinthine levels, Luna Parc includes a kind of living museum, where Boscarino adds new work all the time, plus studios devoted to various mediums, living spaces, and an expansive sculpture garden. At 5,000 square feet, the self-described “madcap” artist’s vibrant, elaborately ornamented home evokes a fairytale dwelling or a whimsical, Tim Burton-esque construction.

    Boscarino continues to add new details to Luna Parc, whether electrifying a concrete sculpture garden with colored lights or adding new works to the museum. The house occasionally opens to the public during the summer months, and you can learn more and plan your visit on Boscarino’s website. Watch the documentary in full on Vimeo.

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