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    Hundreds of Huge Flowers Spring Forth in Carly Glovinski’s Monumental ‘Almanac’

    “Almanac” (2024), installation view, acrylic on Mylar. Photos by Julia Featheringill. All images courtesy of Carly Glovinski, Morgan Lehman Gallery, and MASS MoCA, shared with permission

    Hundreds of Huge Flowers Spring Forth in Carly Glovinski’s Monumental ‘Almanac’

    April 24, 2025

    ArtNature

    Kate Mothes

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    “Gardening gives one back a sense of proportion about everything—except itself,” author May Sarton (1912-1995) wrote in her book Plant Dreaming Deep (1968), a journal about discovering a love of tending to the land. For Carly Glovinski (previously), the sentiment incidentally frames something of a raison d’être for the artist’s remarkable large-scale floral installation at MASS MoCA.

    Glovinski was especially moved by Sarton’s book The House by the Sea (1977), which traces the author’s move from New Hampshire to the seacoast of Maine. The vibrancy of gardens spurred the artist’s fascination with flowers, culminating recently in an expansive work titled “Almanac.”

    Celebrating the diversity and dynamism of blooms, the piece explores ideas around placemaking and the passage of time. “For Glovinski, the garden is a metaphor for collapsed time and perishable memories,” says an exhibition statement. Along with Sarton, the artist also draws on poet Emily Dickinson’s love for plants, channeling literary reflections on connecting with the simple pleasures—and sublime chaos—of nature.

    “Almanac” takes its name from the annual guide that forecasts weather and a provides calendars for astronomical events, tides, and planting. The piece took more than a year to complete and comprises hundreds of pressed flower paintings made with washy acrylic paint applied to both sides of semi-transparent mylar. The gestural brushstrokes on translucent material evoke a sense of lightness and delicacy, like real petals blown up to larger-than-life size. Above the installation, she’s labeled segments with the months the blooms appear.

    Glovinski references pressed blossoms that she has grown, harvested, or collected from friends, nodding to Emily Dickinson’s love of the practice. (The poet created a stunning herbarium containing 424 specimens collected around her home in Amherst, Massachusetts.) “By observing, tending, and preserving flowers, ‘Almanac’ becomes both a visual record of the seasons and a commentary on the labor of care,” the museum says.

    See more on Glovinski’s website and Instagram.

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    A Sprawling Garden Opening Next Spring Embodies Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’

    Photos by Almin Tabak. All images courtesy of Starry Night Retreat, shared with permission

    A Sprawling Garden Opening Next Spring Embodies Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’

    November 4, 2024

    ArtDesignNature

    Kate Mothes

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    Two decades ago, Halim Zukic purchased a 173-acre plot of land in a verdant valley near his hometown of Visoko, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He conceived of a retreat, where his love of nature and landscape design could open to the public. But it wasn’t until 2018 that the businessman and art enthusiast began replicating details of one of the world’s most recognizable paintings on an enormous scale.

    While working on the property one day, Zukic observed some tractor tracks that reminded him the swirls and waves of Vincent van Gogh’s seminal work from 1889, “The Starry Night.” With plenty of motivation but less of a clear plan, he and an amateur team intuitively followed the contours of the land and made numerous adjustments over time to achieve visual and spatial harmony.

    The elaborate design for Starry Night Retreat, which employs lavender and a variety of other herbs as its medium, is characterized primarily by the absence of straight lines. The estate encompasses a 25-acre park within its overall footprint, which includes meeting places like a natural amphitheater.

    The project “honors Vincent van Gogh and those who bravely pursue their passions despite the sacrifices required,” says hospitality manager Merjem Zukić. “Mr. Zukic views the retreat as a unique space where nature and art blend, enabling visitors to reconnect with essential elements of their being and engage their senses.”

    Starry Night Retreat is slated to open to the public next May. Find more on its website.

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    Loss, Grief, and Renewal Spring Forth in Ebony G. Patterson’s Paper Assemblages

    Detail of “Studies for a vocabulary of loss XXV” (2024), digital print on archival watercolor paper and construction paper with feather butterflies, plastic flies, roaches, spiders, and memorial rosette reading “affliction,” 47 1/2 x 30 1/2 x 12 inches (framed). Photos by Mikhail Mishin. All images © Ebony G. Patterson, courtesy of the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery, shared with permission

    Loss, Grief, and Renewal Spring Forth in Ebony G. Patterson’s Paper Assemblages

    September 5, 2024

    Art

    Kate Mothes

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    For more than a decade, the history, lore, science, and symbolism of the garden has been central to the work of Ebony G. Patterson (previously). In the summer of 2023, Patterson’s installation …things come to thrive…in the shedding…in the molting… at New York Botanical Garden marked an introduction to her series Studies for a vocabulary of loss.

    At this weekend’s Armory Show, the artist shares 24 new pieces from the series in a solo presentation exploring the symbolism of gardens and grief.

    “Studies for a vocabulary of loss XXV” (2024), digital print on archival watercolor paper and construction paper with feather butterflies, plastic flies, roaches, spiders, and memorial rosette reading “affliction,” 47 1/2 x 30 1/2 x 12 inches (framed)

    For Patterson, the garden is a rich metaphor for the body. She often interrogates themes of visibility and invisibility, navigating the intersections of gender, class, and race within the context of postcolonial space. In her paper assemblages, Patterson combines cutouts of foliage, butterflies, and blossoms with plastic insects and mourning rosettes.

    “Each piece evokes the imagery of memorial wreaths but with text that diverges from traditional funeral associations,” says a statement from moniquemeloche. “Patterson asks us to grapple with the impossibility of loss, reflecting on an extensive vocabulary centered on words like calamity, forgetting, perdition, misery, wound, lack, failure, blot out, debt, hurt, undoing, and havoc.”

    In the context of the garden, the loss and renewal of life are inherent in its natural cycle, and through vibrant and detailed reliefs, Patterson considers the cycle of grief and the potential for life.

    If you’re in New York, you can find Patterson’s solo booth on view from September 6 to 8 at the Javits Center. Find more on the artist’s website.

    “Studies for a vocabulary of loss XXIV” (2024), digital print on archival watercolor paper and construction paper with feather butterflies, plastic flies, spiders, and memorial rosette reading “blot out,” 47 1/2 x 30 1/2 x 12 inches (framed)

    “Studies for a vocabulary of loss XXII” (2024), digital print on archival watercolor paper and construction paper with feather butterflies, plastic flies, spiders, and memorial rosette reading “forgetting,” 47 1/2 x 30 1/2 x 12 inches (framed)

    “Studies for a vocabulary of loss XXVIII” (2024), digital print on archival watercolor paper and construction paper with feather butterflies, plastic flies, roaches, and memorial rosette reading “perdition,” 47 1/2 x 30 1/2 x 12 inches (framed)

    Detail of “Studies for a vocabulary of loss XXVIII” (2024)

    “Studies for a vocabulary of loss XXII” (2024), digital print on archival watercolor paper and construction paper with feather butterflies, plastic flies, spiders, and memorial rosette reading “forgetting,” 47 1/2 x 30 1/2 x 12 inches (framed)

    Detail of “Studies for a vocabulary of loss XXII” (2024)

    “Studies for a vocabulary of loss XXIX” (2024), digital print on archival watercolor paper and construction paper with feather butterflies, plastic flies, roaches, spiders, and memorial rosette reading “lack,” 47 1/2 x 30 1/2 x 12 inches (framed)

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