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      A Flower Patch of Recycled Denim Grows from the Ceiling in Ian Berry’s ‘Secret Garden’

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      Art

      #denim
      #fashion
      #flowers
      #installation
      #textiles

      July 14, 2021
      Grace Ebert

      “Secret Garden” (2021), at Museum Rijswijk. Photo by Marcus van Ee. All images © Ian Berry, shared with permission
      Whimsical tendrils of vines, foliage, wisteria, and chrysanthemums sprout from artist Ian Berry’s wild, overgrown garden plots. Densely assembled and often suspended from the ceiling, his recurring “Secret Garden” is comprised of blooms and leafy plants created entirely from recycled denim, producing immersive spaces teeming with indigo botanicals in various washes and fades.
      Since its debut at the New York Children’s Museum of the Arts, Berry’s site-specific installation has undergone a few iterations. “The first one was made with children in mind… hence the more magical secret garden angle,” he says, “just wanting to (ensure they think about) where the material comes from, see what they can make, and seek out outdoor places within a city.” It’s since traveled to London, Barcelona, The Netherlands, France, Kentucky, and the San Francisco Flower Mart, where it’s permanently installed as a trellis lining the space’s windows.

      “Secret Garden,” New York Children’s Museum of the Arts. Photo by Lucinda Grange
      The initial installation sourced damaged bolts from Cone Denim, specifically its now-shuttered White Oak Mill in North Carolina, which is known for its dedication to transparent cotton sourcing and commitment to using less water. Although much of Berry’s works recycle discarded jeans, jackets, and materials that are unusable for garments and employ environmentally conscious companies like Tonello to wash and laser the vines, sustainability is an ancillary element of his practice.
      Instead, the East London-based artist focuses on generating a broader conversation about the ways communities change over time and a hope that people will find magic where it’s not necessarily expected.  “The piece was born out of the idea that in New York, many children would grow up without a garden, and as much of my work is about the community in urban environments,” he shares. “I wanted afterwards for the parents and children to go and seek them out—and they did.”
      “Secret Garden” is on view as part of Berry’s solo show Splendid Isolation, which is up through August 15 at Museum Rijswijk in the Hague, The Netherlands. In October, his work is headed to the Textil Museet in Sweden, where it’ll be until May 2022. Explore a larger collection of his textile-based floral pieces on his site and Instagram.

      “Secret Garden,” New York Children’s Museum of the Arts. Photo by Will Ellis
      “Secret Garden” (2021), at Museum Rijswijk. Photo by Marcus van Ee
      “Secret Garden,” New York Children’s Museum of the Arts. Photo by Lucinda Grange
      “Secret Garden,” New York Children’s Museum of the Arts. Photo by Will Ellis
      “Secret Garden,” New York Children’s Museum of the Arts. Photo by Lucinda Grange

      #denim
      #fashion
      #flowers
      #installation
      #textiles

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    • 213 Shares109 Views

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      A Dreamy Fiber Installation by Vanessa Barragão Transforms a Medieval Bridge into a Patch of Oversized Orchids

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      Art
      Craft

      #fiber art
      #flowers
      #installation
      #public art
      #video

      July 6, 2021
      Grace Ebert

      All images © Vanessa Barragão, shared with permission
      In the small town of Paderne, Portugal, a whimsical valance of crocheted leaves, dangling tendrils, and petals dyed with subtle gradients encircles the stone archways of a battered medieval bridge. Titled “Algarvensis,” the dreamy installation is by Portuguese artist Vanessa Barragão, who’s known for her large-scale textured tapestries that recreate landscapes and gardens with tufted fibers. The bowed entanglement recreates oversized orchids native to the region with wool from nearby sheep and recycled yarn, resin, and other materials in a celebration of the local environment where the artist spent much of her childhood.
      “Algarvensis,” which the municipality of Albufeira commissioned to help elevate the Geoparque Algarvensis to the status of a Worldwide UNESCO Geoparque, will be up until September 12, and you can the process and installation behind the piece on Barragão’s Instagram.

      

      #fiber art
      #flowers
      #installation
      #public art
      #video

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    • 188 Shares179 Views

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      Dense Fields of Flowers Spring from People and Everyday Objects in Animated Works by Grif

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      Animation
      Art

      #flowers
      #gifs
      #mutiples

      June 24, 2021
      Grace Ebert

      Fields of vibrant flowers spring from a Brooklyn brownstone, basketball court, and Vermeer’s “Girl with Pearl Earring” in Equinox Collection by Grif. The Manhattan-based artist is working on an ongoing series of animations that transform objects and spaces into wild gardens in full bloom. The looping clips are designed to “illustrate how nature’s energy will continue to evolve, reclaim, and transfer even without us,” Grif says. “The concept of transferring energy is one that is constantly in motion. Energy is constantly being transformed all around us. It’s the first rule of thermodynamics.”
      Whether enveloping a Berlin doorstep or producing a trail of flowers in a skateboarder’s wake, each piece is a mini-narrative that’s rooted in a place, time, or experience the artist wanted to revisit. “I chose scenes from my memory and slightly changed the surroundings to embed a sense of nostalgia for the audience, a sort of golden light that elicits this feeling of optimism. We often look back quite fondly on memories, they’re rose-tinted or sugar-coated or whichever metaphor you like,” Grif says.
      Some of the works shown here were featured last month for Callao City Arts in Madrid, and others will be on view as part of an exhibition led by Collab in Moscow. You can follow the ongoing collection on Behance and Instagram.

      #flowers
      #gifs
      #mutiples

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    • 163 Shares99 Views

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      Enchanting Scenes Combine Multiple Precisely Carved Woodblocks into Full-Color Prints by Tugboat Printshop

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      Art

      #flowers
      #posters and prints
      #printmaking
      #trees
      #woodblock prints

      June 1, 2021
      Grace Ebert

      “Blue Bridge” (2020), woodcut on ivory somerset paper, 18 x 22.5 inches. All images © Tugboat Printshop, shared with permission
      Valerie Lueth, who’s behind the Pittsburgh-based Tugboat Printshop (previously), continues to cultivate dreamy scenarios painstakingly printed with intricately carved woodblocks. Her recent creations include a distant truss bridge peeking through vegetation, a whimsically intertwined pair of trees—now in full color, this piece began as a black-line woodcut commissioned for an edition of Jean-Claude Grumberg’s The Most Precious of Cargoes—and a web of vines dripping with rain and jewels evoking a dreamcatcher.
      After sketching with pencil on plywood blocks, Lueth hand-carves the meticulous designs with knives and gouging tools and often cuts multiple panels with slight variances for each print. In addition to building depth of color, Lueth’s sequential process yields greater highlights, shadows, and overall detail to the completed work. The lush, leafy scene comprising “Blue Bridge,” for example, is the product of four blocks coated in black, blue, green, and purple oil-based inks, which are pressed in succession to create the richly layered landscape.
      Prints are available on Esty or from Tugboat’s site, and you can see more of Lueth’s process and a larger collection of her works, including a glimpse at a new floral relief in black-and-white, on Instagram.

      Detail of “Web” (2019), woodcut on natural Kitakata paper, 20 x 16 inches
      “Web” (2019), woodcut on natural Kitakata paper, 20 x 16 inches
      “Blue Bridge” (2020), woodcut on ivory somerset paper, 18 x 22.5 inches
      Detail of “Web” woodcuts
      “Together Trees” (2020), woodcut on natural Kitakata paper, 12.5 x 9 inches
      Detail of “Together Trees” (2020), woodcut on natural Kitakata paper, 12.5 x 9 inches
      Detail of “Web” (2019), woodcut on natural Kitakata paper, 20 x 16 inches
      Detail of “Blue Bridge” woodcut, 18 x 22.5 inches

      #flowers
      #posters and prints
      #printmaking
      #trees
      #woodblock prints

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    • 138 Shares199 Views

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      Flowers Mutate into Peculiar Blossoms in 18th-Century-Style Paintings by Laurent Grasso

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      Art

      #bronze
      #flowers
      #oil painting
      #painting
      #sculptures

      April 13, 2021
      Grace Ebert

      “Future Herbarium,” distemper on wood, 33.5 x 24 x 4.2 centimeters. Photo by Claire Dorn, courtesy of Perrotin. All images © Laurent Grasso, shared with permission
      In Laurent Grasso’s Future Herbarium, small bunches of flowers evolve into bizarre forms with doubled pistils and petals sprouting in thick layers and tufts. Painted in distemper or oil, the transformed blooms are depicted as typical studies of specimens common in the 18th century. The mutations bring together historical aesthetics and transformations from an imagined future, provoking “an impression of strangeness where beauty and anxiety are mixed,” the Paris-based artist says.
      Grasso works in multiple mediums, from painting to sculpture to film, and the themes of time and transformation permeate many of his projects. Future Herbarium stems from “ARTIFICIALIS,” a film slated for screening at the Musée d’Orsay, that considers the liminal spaces between nature and culture in relation to images. In its presentation at Hong Kong’s Perrotin (which is up through April 24) and the Jeonnam Museum of Art in Gwangyang (which is on view virtually and in-person through June 30), the series is paired with another project dealing with the impacts of solar wind on the earth. “The Future Herbarium’s flowers are thus subjected to an imaginary catastrophe, which would have produced mutations but also to these solar winds,” the artist says.
      In addition to the two exhibitions in Hong Kong and Gwangyang, Grasso’s work will be on view at Aranya Art Center in Qinhuangdao, China, through May 16, at Artspace in Sydney from April 28 to July 11, and at Musée de l’Armée in Paris from May 7, 2021, to January 30, 2022. Explore more of his multi-disciplinary practice on Instagram. (via This Isn’t Happiness)

      “Future Herbarium,” distemper on wood, 34 x 24 x 4.5 centimeters. Photo by Claire Dorn, courtesy of Perrotin
      “Future Herbarium,” oil on wood, 33.6 x 24 x 4.8 centimeters. Photo by Claire Dorn, courtesy of Perrotin
      “Future Herbarium,” distemper on wood, 34 x 24 x 4.5 centimeters. Photo by Claire Dorn, courtesy of Perrotin
      “Future Herbarium,” distemper on wood, 34 x 24 x 4.5 centimeters. Courtesy of Perrotin
      “Future Herbarium” (2020), white bronze, 135 x 20 x 20 centimeters. Photo by Ringo Cheung, courtesy of Perrotin
      “Future Herbarium” (2020), white bronze, 135 x 20 x 20 centimeters. Photo by Claire Dorn, courtesy of Courtesy Perrotin

      #bronze
      #flowers
      #oil painting
      #painting
      #sculptures

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    • 200 Shares139 Views

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      Cosmic Nature: A Spectacular Polka Dot-Filled Exhibition by Yayoi Kusama Sprawls Across New York Botanical Garden

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      Art

      #flowers
      #installation
      #mirrors
      #pumpkins
      #sculpture
      #yayoi kusama

      April 9, 2021
      Grace Ebert

      [embedded content]
      Now inhabiting the verdant, 250-acre campus of the New York Botanical Garden are oversized flowers sprouting in seasonal arrangements, a glowing pumpkin-packed infinity room, and a sea of 1,400 reflective spheres by Yayoi Kusama (previously). Teeming with squiggly sculptures, site-specific installations, and smaller pieces covered in the Japanese artist’s iconic polka dots, Cosmic Nature is an expansive exhibition celebrating decades of Kusama’s bold, joyful body of work.
      Four new pieces are debuting during the immersive show, like the tentacled creature that marks the entrance to the grounds. Others include a 16-foot-tall dancing pumpkin, an obliteration greenhouse, and a new infinity room that reflects the lush greenery of the outdoor environment. Coupled with a variety of smaller acrylic paintings, fabric sculptures, and drawings on paper—the earliest of which dates back to 1945— the most recent works establish a broad visual trajectory of Kusama’s fixation on the natural world and never-ending penchant for polka dots.
      While many of the playful blooms connect to larger themes about the human relationship to the environment, some pieces are distinctly personal, including “Flower Obsession,” which invites visitors into a space that mimics the artists’ own greenhouse. “Our earth is only one polka dot among a million stars in the cosmos…when we obliterate nature and our bodies with polka dots, we become part of the unity of our environment,” the prolific artist notably said.
      Cosmic Nature opens this weekend at the Bronx venue and runs through October 31. (via Hyperallergic)

      “I Want to Fly to the Universe” (2020), the New York Botanical Garden, urethane paint on aluminum, 157 3/8 x 169 3/8 x 140 1/8 inches. Collection of the artist, courtesy of Ota Fine Arts and David Zwirner. All images via New York Botanical Garden
      “Dancing Pumpkin” (2020), view at the New York Botanical Garden, urethane paint on bronze, 196 7/8 x 116 7/8 x 117 ¼ inches. Collection of the artist, courtesy of Ota Fine Arts and David Zwirner
      “Narcissus Garden” (1966/2021), view at The New York Botanical Garden, 1,400 stainless steel spheres, installation dimensions variable. Collection of the artist, courtesy of Ota Fine Arts
      “Ascension of Polka Dots on the Trees” (2002/2021), view at the New York Botanical Garden, printed polyester fabric, bungees, and aluminum staples installed on existing trees, site-specific installation, dimensions variable. Collection of the artist
      “My Soul Blooms Forever” (2019), view at the New York Botanical Garden, urethane paint on stainless steel, installation dimensions variable. Collection of the artist, courtesy of Ota Fine Arts, Victoria Miro, and David Zwirner
      “Pumpkins Screaming About Love Beyond Infinity” (2017), mirrors, acrylic, glass, LEDs, and wood panels, 59 x 59 x 83 ½ inches. Collection of the artist, courtesy of Ota Fine Arts
      “Hymn of Life—Tulips” (2007), mixed media, installation dimensions variable, courtesy of the City of Beverly Hills
      “Life” (2015), view at the New York Botanical Garden, fiberglass-reinforced plastic, tiles, and resin, installation dimensions variable. Collection of the artist, courtesy of Ota Fine Arts and David Zwirner

      #flowers
      #installation
      #mirrors
      #pumpkins
      #sculpture
      #yayoi kusama

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    • 175 Shares189 Views

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      Kinetic Flowers Grow from a Deteriorated Landscape in an Otherworldly Installation by Casey Curran

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      Art

      #flowers
      #installation
      #kinetic sculpture
      #video

      March 26, 2021
      Grace Ebert

      [embedded content]
      In Parable of Gravity, artist Casey Curran (previously) assembles a vast garden of delicate kinetic blossoms amidst an expanse of deterioration. The sweeping landscape, which is on view at Seattle’s MadArt through April 17, positions Curran’s pulsing plant forms atop 20 towers of wooden scaffolding that line the gallery space. Coated in a thick layer of mud, the tallest structures scale eight feet at the outer edge of the installation, where a human-like figure appears to hover in the air. The anonymous body is covered in the flowers, which are made from laser-cut polyester drawing papers and powered by cranks and small motors.
      Through the maze of garden plots at the other end of the space hangs a hollow, aluminum asteroid—which is modeled after 951 Gaspra, the first rocky mass humans were able to observe in detail thanks to a 1991 viewing by the Galileo spacecraft. Titled “Anchor of Janus,” the imposing sculpture references both the Roman god and the intricate motifs on Gothic cathedrals and provides a foreboding, catastrophic lens to the otherwise burgeoning garden.
      In a statement, Curran explains the confluence of the manufactured and organic themes:
      This mythological, architectural, and astronomical convergence considers not only the scientific and spiritual aspects of our connection to the natural world, but also our cultural legacy and the ways in which past technological advancements continue to impact our lives and experiences today. Further, the reference to Janus recognizes the dual nature of human progress, with all of the positive and negative implications it carries.
      Watch the video above to watch the installation take shape, and follow Curran on Instagram and Vimeo to stay up-to-date with his latest projects.

      Full installation view: “Kinetic Towers” and “Anchor of Janus,” Dur-alar, MDF, aluminum, dirt, paper, and glue. Photo by James Harnois. All images © Casey Curran, shared with permission

      “We Spoke Like This to Remember.” Photo by Adrian Garcia Rodriguez 
      Detail of “Anchor of Janus.” Photo by James Harnois
      Full installation view: “Kinetic Towers” and “Anchor of Janus,” Dur-alar, MDF, aluminum, dirt, paper, and glue. Photo by James Harnois
      Detail of “We Spoke Like This to Remember”
      “Kinetic Towers” and “We Spoke Like This to Remember.” Photo by James Harnois
      Photo by James Harnois
      Visitors walking through the kinetic towers. Photo by Adrian Garcia Rodriguez
      Curran installs “We Spoke Like This to Remember”

      #flowers
      #installation
      #kinetic sculpture
      #video

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      A Flurry of Feathers and Leaves Surround Spirited Birds in Fio Silva’s Vivid Murals

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      Art

      #birds
      #flowers
      #mural
      #public art
      #street art

      March 5, 2021
      Grace Ebert

      Castelar, Buenos Aires. All images @ Fio Silva, shared with permission
      Fio Silva tucks clusters of oversized birds and botanicals into otherwise stark urban spaces, creating striking murals awash in puffs of feathers, petals, and leaves. The Buenos Aires-based artist focuses largely on movement, a thread that runs through both the vivid renderings of winged subjects as they appear to take flight or perch for just a moment. “It was that lack of stillness through work and searching for walls to paint that I found meaning in my time,” Silva tells Colossal.
      When working in color, the artist starts with blues, yellows, and reds before expanding the palette based on the “moods and to intensify, in some way, what I want to convey, if it is something rather clear, bright, or something… more subdued or desolate,” Silva says. “When I paint, I try to convey a certain force, that by seeing it or sharing it I can move someone, in whatever way.”
      Silva plans to complete a few murals in Argentina during the next few months and will travel to Europe during the summer, with an exhibition of smaller paintings slated for October in Paris. Keep up with the artist’s monumental public works on Instagram.

      Olivos, Buenos Aires
      General Roca, Rio Negro
      Olivos, Buenos Aires
      Left: Berlin, Germany. Right: Belsh, Albania
      General Roca, Rio Negro
      Patos, Albania
      Patos, Albania

      #birds
      #flowers
      #mural
      #public art
      #street art

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