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    Mandy Barker’s Cyanotypes Revive a Pioneering Botanist’s Book to Warn About Synthetic Debris

    Jersey boxers (Gigartina sunday). All images from ‘Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Imperfections’ by Mandy Barker, published by GOST Books. All images © Mandy Barker, courtesy of the author and GOST, shared with permission

    Mandy Barker’s Cyanotypes Revive a Pioneering Botanist’s Book to Warn About Synthetic Debris

    March 18, 2025

    ArtBooksClimateNatureScience

    Kate Mothes

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    “In 2012, I found a piece of material in a rock pool that changed my life,” artist Mandy Barker says. “Mistaking this moving piece of cloth for seaweed started the recovery of synthetic clothing from around the coastline of Britain for the next ten years.”

    Barker is known for her photographic practice that takes a deep dive into marine debris. Her work has been featured in publications like National Geographic, The Guardian, VOGUE, and many more. Often collaborating with scientists to raise awareness about plastic pollution in the earth’s oceans, she eloquently highlights its harmful impacts on marine habitats, wildlife, and all of us who depend on the ocean for sustenance.

    Patterned blouse (Laminaria materia)

    Forthcoming from GOST Books, Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Imperfections surveys the unexpected and out-of-place along British shores. At first glance, each specimen appears like a fragment of a leaf or a scatter of organic material, but upon closer inspection, the subjects of Barker’s images reveal details of unraveled polyester or scraps of nylon tights.

    Barker hopes to raise awareness of the damaging effects of fast fashion, synthetic clothing, and the increasing amounts of microfibers in the oceans. The fashion industry is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than all international flights and container ships combined and is also the second-largest consumer of water, requiring about 2,000 gallons of water to produce a single pair of jeans.

    Barker’s new book is composed as an homage to the work of trailblazing botanist and photographer Anna Atkins (1799-1871), who is thought to be the first woman to take a photograph and the first person to publish a book containing photographic illustrations. Her 1843 study, Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions, employed blue photograms to illustrate photosynthetic organisms and seaweeds.

    Barker’s work serves as a kind of sibling or sequel to Atkins’ pioneering publication, presented in a similar style with handwritten names in Latin beneath each specimen.

    Coat lining (Dichloria vestis)

    In their updated versions, the titles take Atkins’ scientific names as a starting point and tweak them just slightly to conjure references to clothing or the human body. In the plate titled “Dichloris vestis,” for example, Barker draws on a real type of algae Atkins catalogued, Dichloria viridis, but “vestis” is instead a tongue-in-cheek reference to outerwear, often made of polyester or other synthetic materials. “Conferva tibia,” which portrays frayed tights, employs the Latin word for “leg.”

    From John o’ Groats at the northernmost tip of Great Britain to Land’s End at its southernmost, Barker recovered specimens of clothing from more than 120 beaches. Her finds, ranging from parkas to wigs to sports jerseys, were pulled from the sand, tide pools, or directly from the sea. In Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Imperfections, Barker looks to the past to better understand how our actions in the present have both immediate impacts and will shape the future of the climate crisis.

    Find your copy on GOST’s online store, where signed editions are also available, and explore more of Barker’s work on her website and Instagram.

    Nylon tights (Conferva tibia)

    Shawl (Odonthalia amiculum), shown on a spread from ‘Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Imperfections’ by Mandy Barker

    Jacket lining (Rhodomenia ignotus)

    Fishnet tights (Chylocladia funda)

    Two Blouses (Asperococcus indusium)

    Synthetic fur hood (Myrionema Palliolum)

    Lining (with algae) (Grateloupia intra)

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    Porcelain Vessels Are Portals Through Time and Space in Paintings by Sun Hwa Kim

    “Still Life with Jars” (2025), acrylic and flashe on canvas, 60 x 84 inches. All images courtesy of the artist and Harper’s, New York

    Porcelain Vessels Are Portals Through Time and Space in Paintings by Sun Hwa Kim

    March 17, 2025

    Art

    Kate Mothes

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    In the late 17th century, during Korea’s Joseon Dynasty, a particularly rotund, plain white porcelain vessel rose to popularity. Nicknamed “moon jars” for their milky glaze and spherical form, the earliest examples were finished in wood-fired kilns to add character to their minimalist surfaces. Treasured and reproduced by skilled artisans throughout the centuries, the classic style continues to influence contemporary artisans.

    For Brooklyn-based artist Sung Hwa Kim, the traditional Korean jar serves as a starting point for an ongoing series of paintings invoking decorative vessels as metaphorical containers for the past. In the context of the still-life, he conjures what he refers to as “visual haikus,” poetic evocations of the passing of time, like changing seasons and the transition from day into night.

    “Still Life with Jar, Ashtray, and Vincent van Gogh Painting” (2024), acrylic and flashe on canvas, 72 x 60 inches

    In Kim’s current solo exhibition, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring at Harper’s, the artist emphasizes quiet, everyday moments in domestic settings that often overlook brick buildings or the iconic Brooklyn Bridge. Some of his compositions are vibrantly monochrome, setting the scene for a vase on top of a table, containing a scene from a historic painting or faraway landscape.

    Kim often incorporates spectral, glowing insects (previously) and situates the vessels on sills or near windows. Vases contain landscapes, trees, and animals, while decor on the walls reference works by famous modernists like Vincent van Gogh, René Magritte, and Sanyu.

    Inside the pots, the flora appears ghost-like or faded, rendered in fuzzy gray marks, and objects left nearby, like a pencil and notebook or a drinking glass, suggest that someone was recently present but an unspecified time has passed since they left. The jars serve as portals to other times and places just as the windows provide views of another world. “Ultimately, Kim masterfully inhabits the role of guide, making perceptible the delicate threshold between what fades and what endures,” says a gallery statement.

    Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring continues in New York through April 5. See more on the artist’s website and Instagram.

    “Still Life with Jar, Fruits, and Incense Burner” (2025), acrylic and flashe on canvas, 72 x 60 inches

    “Still Life with Jar and Round Glass Top Table” (2025), acrylic and flashe on canvas, 50 x 40 inches

    “Still Life with Jar, Moon Lamp, and René Magritte Postcard” (2024), acrylic and flashe on canvas, 72 x 60 inches

    “Still Life with Jar, Pencil, and Notebook” (2025), acrylic and flashe on canvas, 60 x 48 inches

    “Still Life with Jar” (2024), acrylic and flashe on canvas, 50 x 40 inches

    “Still Life with Jar and Sanyu Painting” (2025), acrylic and flashe on canvas, 60 x 48 inches

    “Still Life with Jars” (2025), acrylic and flashe on canvas, 60 x 48 inches

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    Delight in Heather Rios’s Delectable Cakes Made from Polymer Clay and Embroidery

    All images courtesy of Heather Rios, shared with permission

    Delight in Heather Rios’s Delectable Cakes Made from Polymer Clay and Embroidery

    March 17, 2025

    ArtCraftFood

    Kate Mothes

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    While Heather Rios’s slices of layer cake look ready to stick a fork into, you may want to think twice. Formed of polymer clay and finished with embroidery, the artist pairs the sweets with a vintage plate—and sometimes a fork—in playful trompe l’oeils.

    Enveloped in realistic frosting and decorated with berries, blossoms, and sprinkles, each work evokes pieces you’d be ready to dig into at a birthday or wedding. Rios meticulously embroiders each sponge element, fashioning patterned layers in thread on a hoop before transferring the finished panel to the sculpture.

    In addition to freestanding forms, Rios embellishes small paintings with shallow reliefs of cakes on canvas, emphasizing vibrant color and the fluffy texture of the exposed interiors.

    Many of Rios’s cakes would be exceedingly difficult to achieve in reality, like detailed floral designs or motifs from blue-and-white porcelain. Lucky for us, we can have our cake and keep it, too. Find more on the artist’s Instagram, and purchase a slice from her Etsy shop.

    A sponge embroidery in progress

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    Through Knotted Installations, Windy Chien Reinterprets the Hitching Post

    All images © Windy Chien, shared with permission

    Through Knotted Installations, Windy Chien Reinterprets the Hitching Post

    March 14, 2025

    ArtCraft

    Jackie Andres

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    Since the 1800s, hitching posts have shaped a history anchored in utility and community. Scattered throughout towns and outside common areas, the sturdy objects offered a secure point to tie down horses, especially during social events or gatherings. San Francisco-based artist Windy Chien reinterprets this functional object in her ongoing Hitching Post series.

    Interdependent forms are particularly fascinating to Chien. “If the object around which the hitch is tied were to be removed, the hitch collapses and loses its integrity,” she says. Just as the presence of the knot relies on another element to remain intact, social spaces and gatherings rely on collective presence.

    Having received commissions for the projects since 2019, Chien creates unique pieces for a wide range of communal areas, such as airports, offices, houses, and ranches. Cutting wooden supports to various lengths and fastening rope by wrapping and knotting, the flowing and geometric compositions stretch across walls and exterior facades.

    Combining motifs from her Circuit Board series with other techniques, Chien recently completed a large installation in a Los Angeles office stairwell comprised of four works, each spanning 20 feet wide in a gradient of six hues. In April, the artist is looking forward to Ruth Asawa’s retrospective at San Francisco MOMA, where she will be showing several works alongside the exhibition. Find more on her website and Instagram.

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    Sparse Brushstrokes Give Rise to Thick Impasto in Jose Lerma’s Minimal Portraits

    “Leidy” (2025), acrylic on burlap, 48 x 36 inches. All images courtesy of Jose Lerma and Nino Mier Gallery, shared with permission

    Sparse Brushstrokes Give Rise to Thick Impasto in Jose Lerma’s Minimal Portraits

    March 13, 2025

    Art

    Grace Ebert

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    When Jose Lerma encountered “Reception of the Grand Condé by Louis XIV” by Jean-Léon Gérôme at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, he found himself drawn to the figures tucked far behind the crowd. Known for his meticulous realism, Gérôme rendered these small characters with minimal brushstrokes, a decision that has influenced Lerma’s work for more than a decade.

    Exaggerating the sparse quality of the figures, Lerma (previously) paints portraits in wide swaths of acrylic applied with brooms and industrial tools. The new works retain the contrasts of earlier pieces as well-defined strokes sweep across the burlap to form heavy, impasto ridges.

    “Yamila” (2025), acrylic on burlap, 72 x 48 inches

    At Nino Mier Gallery in Brussels, Lerma’s new solo exhibition Bayamonesque presents the culmination of his current style. The title references his upbringing in Bayamón, Puerto Rico, and how we think about resemblance. Painting both real subjects and manufactured characters, the portraits reference those who might otherwise be relegated to the background, stripping down their likeness to only what’s necessary.

    Vacillating between figurative and abstract, the compositions are what Lerma refers to as “the summary of a portrait…The abstract painter in me is, above all, drawn to certain people for specific features that can be broken down to their bare minimum as paintable elements: an expressive cowl, a striking nose, a distinctive shape of lips.”

    Bayamonesque is on view from March 14 to April 17 in Brussels. Find more from Lerma on Instagram.

    “Celimar” (2025), acrylic on burlap, 32 x 24 inches

    “Leda” (2025), acrylic on burlap, 72 x 48 inches

    “Clarisa” (2025), acrylic on burlap, 32 x 24 inches

    “Felo” (2025), acrylic on burlap, 24 x 16 inches

    “Ismaela” (2025), acrylic on burlap, 32 x 24 inches

    “Rania” (2025), acrylic on burlap, 32 x 24 inches

    “Fernanda” (2025), acrylic on burlap, 24 x 16 inches

    “Lisi” (2025), acrylic on burlap, 48 x 36 inches

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    Melissa Calderón Preserves Neighborhood Memories in Bold Textured Thread

    “Out Here (we is)” (2025), cotton and metallic thread hand embroidered on linen, 16 x 20 inches. All images courtesy of Melissa Calderón, shared with permission

    Melissa Calderón Preserves Neighborhood Memories in Bold Textured Thread

    March 13, 2025

    ArtCraft

    Grace Ebert

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    On expanses of beige linen, Melissa Calderón immortalizes pockets of a neighborhood or domestic space. Combining imagery from her childhood in the Bronx with her family’s native Puerto Rico, the artist translates familiar landscapes and sights into vivid embroideries, preserving her memories in thread.

    The intimate compositions capture how neighborhoods and communities change, particularly as long-time residents are displaced. Her current body of work, titled Gentrified Landscapes, explores “a place that once was but is now between the two spurts of gentrified-led divestment and revitalization and how this particularly affects the Bronx and Puerto Rico.”

    “Villa Nueva (I’d Still be Puerto Rican even if born on the Moon)” (2024), cotton, nylon, and chenille hand embroidered on linen, 24 x 24 inches

    Calderón embraces the potential of thread to add texture and emphasize the more conceptual elements of her work. “Villa Nueva (I’d Still be Puerto Rican even if born on the Moon),” for example, drapes soft, green chenille across the composition like a lush cluster of vines. “Prone IV | My Underemployed Life series” features a green sofa unraveling into tangled fibers that spill off the canvas.

    In her studio, Calderón focuses on the meditative, entrancing process of stitching. Works begin with a drawing that’s transferred to a pattern and freehand rendered onto the linen. She enjoys the slow, methodical movements, which remind her “of times I sewed with my grandmother, making Cabbage Patch Kids clothes to sell on the playground before school started for the day.  Embroidery takes me to a calm place where only the process matters.”

    Currently, Calderón is working on a few commissions and preparing for a solo exhibition in Puerto Rico. She also recently began a large-scale work titled “Bodega Miles” that will stretch 40 inches wide and take more than a year to complete. You can follow her progress on Instagram.

    “Prone IV | My Underemployed Life series” (2023), cotton and satin thread hand embroidered on linen, 16 x 20 inches

    A work in progress

    “Coming Soon” (2023), cotton and metallic thread hand embroidered on linen, 16 x 20 inches

    “El Tiempo Muerto (The Dead Times)” (2023), cotton, and metallic thread hand embroidered on linen, 24 x 24 inches

    Detail of “Coming Soon” (2023), cotton and metallic thread hand embroidered on linen, 16 x 20 inches

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    Keita Morimoto Lingers in the Artificial Light of Urban Nights

    “Green Room” (2025),
    acrylic and oil on linen, 162 x 194 x 3 centimeters. Photos by Shin Inaba, courtesy of Keita Morimoto and Almine Rech, shared with permission

    Keita Morimoto Lingers in the Artificial Light of Urban Nights

    March 12, 2025

    Art

    Grace Ebert

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    Cities are constantly in flux, but Keita Morimoto (previously) invites us to linger in their transitions a little longer. The artist renders corner stores, vending machines, and lampposts that illuminate spaces that might otherwise go unnoticed. Either unoccupied or inhabited by just one or two people, Morimoto’s scenes are dimly lit but not eerie and invoke the environments most of us engage with for just a moment.

    “The anonymous, liminal spaces in my paintings echo the feeling of never fully belonging,” Morimoto says in a statement. “I’m drawn to the way emotions can transform a familiar setting into something entirely different, revealing deeper truths about the human experience.” 

    “Crossroad” (2025), acrylic and oil on linen, 162 x 130 x 3 centimeters

    In a new body of work titled To Nowhere and Back, the artist continues his explorations into the interplay of light and shadow. Drawing on the sights of New York City and Tokyo, he considers how we find connection in a world that’s constantly changing. He shares:

    My work reflects a lifetime of navigating conflict, loneliness, and the desire to escape within urban environments. When I moved from Osaka to Canada at 16, I experienced a profound sense of isolation, as though severed from everything familiar. Over time, some connections emerged, but it was always accompanied by subtle discomfort. Returning to Japan in 2021 brought a similar disorientation—moments when even my birthplace felt unfamiliar, as if reality itself had shifted.

    Rather than translate streets he’s wandered down directly onto the canvas, Morimoto paints with a cinematic quality. This pulls the viewer from the familiar and makes even the most ordinary sidewalk appear intriguing. Zeroing in on light sources further supports this vision, and artificial bulbs become beacons amid scenes shrouded in darkness. The artist considers how these machines create “a robotic harmony in Japanese urban life” and paints them as characters in their own right.

    To Nowhere and Back runs from March 14 to April 26 at Almine Rech in Tribeca. Find more from Morimoto on Instagram.

    “Last Call” (2025), acrylic and oil on linen, 116.7 x 91 x 2.8 centimeters

    “Evening Embers” (2025), acrylic and oil on linen, 162 x 130.3 x 3 centimeters

    “Forgotten Path” (2025), acrylic and oil on linen, 162 x 259 x 4 centimeters. Photo by Osamu Sakamoto

    “Waiting Hour” (2025), acrylic and oil on linen, 116.7 x 91 x 2.8 centimeters

    “No Destination” (2025), acrylic on panel, 27.3 x 22 x 2 centimeters

    “Evening Embers” (2025), acrylic and oil on linen, 162 x 130 x 3 centimeters

    “Stairs to Nowhere” (2025), acrylic and oil on linen, 162 x 130 x 3 centimeters

    “The Way Back” (2025), acrylic and oil on linen, 162 x 194 x 3 centimeters

    “Missed Calls” (2025), acrylic and oil on linen, 145.5 x 112 x 3 centimeters

    “Gathering” (2025), acrylic on panel, 27.3 x 22 x 2 centimeters

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    Regal Portraits Evoke Myth and Power in Simone Elizabeth Saunders’ Hand-Tufted Textiles

    “Girl with Butterflies” (2024), silk and wool yarn on muslin warp, 50 x 40 inches. All images courtesy of the artist and Claire Oliver Gallery, shared with permission

    Regal Portraits Evoke Myth and Power in Simone Elizabeth Saunders’ Hand-Tufted Textiles

    March 12, 2025

    ArtCraft

    Kate Mothes

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    Emblazoned with vibrant patterns and words like “TRUTH” and “LOVE,” Simone Elizabeth Saunders explores Black identity in relation to kinship, power, and survival. Her hand-tufted textiles (previously) merge cultural narratives and history with mythology, nostalgia, and personal experiences.

    Saunders predominantly focuses on women, who she portrays in bold portraits and within fantastical, empowering scenarios. In recent works like “Girl with Butterflies” and “She Manifests Her Destiny,” figures embrace and commune with totem-like snakes, insects, and plants.

    “She Reveals” (2022), hand-tufted velvet, acrylic, and wool yarn on rug warp, 65 x 60.5 x 1 inches

    Rooted in the myriad histories of the global Black diaspora and rich textile traditions throughout countless cultures, Saunders employs a craft technique historically relegated to a role “beneath” fine art in order to turn the tables on how we comprehend influence, identity, and artistic expression.

    Saunders is represented by Claire Oliver Gallery, and you can explore more work on the artist’s Instagram.

    “(Be)Longing IV” (2023), hand-tufted acrylic, cotton, wool, and metallic yarn on cotton rug warp, 20 x 1 x 30 inches

    “Girl with Hummingbirds” (2024), silk and wool yarn on muslin warp, 50 x 40 inches

    “Internal Reflections” (2022), hand-tufted velvet, acrylic, and wool yarn on rug warp, 66 x 62.5 x 1 inches

    “(Be)Longing VIII” (2024), hand-tufted acrylic, cotton, wool, and metallic yarn on cotton rug warp, 20 x 1 x 30 inches

    “Release in Darkness” (2022), hand-tufted velvet and acrylic yarn on muslin warp, 66 x 55 inches

    “She Manifests Her Destiny” (2024), silk and wool yarn on textile backing, 50 x 40 inches

    “Break Away at Dawn” (2023), hand-tufted velvet, acrylic, and wool yarn on muslin warp, 66 x 56 x 1 inches

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