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    Plump and Peeled Ceramic Bananas Shape Koji Kasatani’s Evocative Sculptures

    
    Art
    Food

    #bananas
    #humor
    #sculpture

    August 10, 2020
    Grace Ebert

    All images © Koji Kasatani, shared with permission
    Long before the infamous banana sent waves through the art world last year, Koji Kasatani was forming playful sculptures with the yellow produce. From a couple of peels mid-waltz to another fruit flattened into a puddle, the ceramic-and-resin artworks are evocative and humorous. Kasatani shares with Colossal that while the banana is a recurring motif, its purpose is light-hearted and is a form of idiosyncratic expression.
    At 40 years old, the Japanese artist first started sculpting ceramic pieces after a residency in Florence, where he learned traditional Italian techniques. Since 2010, Kasatani has created an extensive body of work inspired by the fruit, which you can find on Instagram.

    #bananas
    #humor
    #sculpture

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    Artist Seamus Wray Paints a Dizzying Series of Portraits of Himself Painting Portraits of Himself

    
    Art

    #humor
    #painting
    #portraits
    #self-portrait

    July 23, 2020
    Grace Ebert

    All images © Seamus Wray, shared with permission
    Channeling M.C. Escher and the Droste effect, more broadly, a Chicago-based artist has been painting portraits of himself painting portraits of himself. Seamus Wray, who’s appeared in a similar project shared on Colossal, began with a single representation (shown above) and mirrored his pose in a photograph of the work. He then repeated that process five times, which resulted in a recursive, mixed-media series that changes slightly with each iteration—two cats make an appearance in the final portraits.
    Wray hopes the potentially infinite project begs the questions, “What comes next? Another painting. Are we all just living in a painting? What if this is a painting, within a painting?… I have painted hundreds of self-portraits over the years, and this seemed to be a natural progression from those, as I seem to be going mad painting myself, painting myself,” he tells Colossal.
    Much of Wray’s work is centered on internet culture and media, and he frequently paints bright, saturated depictions of memes and iconic characters from various television shows and movies, many of which he shares on Instagram. The artist also sells prints and other goods with his work on Threadless. (via Kottke)

    #humor
    #painting
    #portraits
    #self-portrait

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    A Carnivalesque Short Film by Fernando Livschitz Imagines a Buoyant Vienna

     “Vienna is like…,” a new animated short by Fernando Livschitz (previously), brings a heavy dose of the absurd to the Austrian capital. The director, who’s from Argentina and heads Black Sheep Films, captures an imagined Vienna in which historic buildings float in the air and a massive, multicolored slinky connects public transit cars. Watch […] More

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    Vintage Jigsaw Puzzles Blended Piece-by-Piece into Surreal Montages by Tim Klein

     “Pig Jaw Suzzle #2,” 11 x 9 inches. All images © Tim Klein, shared with permission Although there’s seemingly only one way to assemble a jigsaw puzzle, Tim Klein (previously) has diverged from the traditional method of following the photo on the box to assemble unusual arrangements of hybrid animals and everyday objects. The Vancouver, […] More

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    A Tiny Lizard Attends Miniature Gallery Opening to See ‘American Gecko’ and ‘The Birth of Gecko’

     All images © Jill Young The Gecko Museum’s opening only had one visitor to consider its most prized pieces: a mango-loving crested gecko that goes by The Mayor. Arriving around 7 p.m., the nocturnal lizard visited his personal gallery earlier this week, stopping to contemplate “American Gecko” and “The Birth of Gecko.” Dallas-based Jill Young, […] More

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    “My Wife Hates it When I Work From Home” — Banksy Shares Rats Run Amok in his Bathroom from Quarantine

     Presumably quarantined like the rest of humanity, Banksy just posted a few images of an artwork executed in his supposed home bathroom. The installation depicts a mischievous pack of his signature rats destroying everything in sight: swinging from towel racks, running on toilet paper, marking the days of quarantine on the wall, and making […] More