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    Song Dong’s Monumental Installations Mirror Memories, Globalization, and Impermanence

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    “A Quarter” (2021-2024), interactive installation of steel, mirrors, collected daily objects and furniture from different
    households, lighting fixtures, small stools, and carpets. All images © Song Dong, shared with permission

    Song Dong’s Monumental Installations Mirror Memories, Globalization, and Impermanence

    September 5, 2025

    Art

    Kate Mothes

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    Mirrors, lights, and household furnishings converge on a grand scale in the luminous installations of Song Dong. The Chinese artist’s interdisciplinary practice often combines performance, sculpture, painting, video, and calligraphy to summon memories and create monumental immersive experiences.

    Themes of transition and ephemerality often appear in Song’s pieces, like a series of installations and performances in which tabletop constructions reminiscent of metropolitan skylines were constructed from edible treats, dismantled brick by brick—or biscuit by biscuit—as visitors passed by. Playful and saccharine on the surface, these works examine the artist’s own childhood experiences of food scarcity along with themes of ephemerality and globalization.

    “Waste Not” (2009), installation performance, Museum of Modern Art, New York

    “Waste Not” —which was shown initially at Beijing Tokyo Art Projects before being exhibited in major institutions in the U.S., U.K., Australia, and Germany—explores related themes of consumption and impermanence. Incorporating more than 10,000 items his mother had accumulated over the course of five decades, the installation-performance became “an act of physical and psychological unpacking,” says Pace Gallery, which represents the artist. Viewers were presented with “a veritable landscape of commodities, ranging from bottle caps, shoes, blankets, toothpaste tubes, metal pots, and toys.”

    Through the use of old wooden windows, bed frames, doors, mirrors, lamps, color-coated glass, porcelain, and other found objects and “daily necessities,” Song composes elaborate, structural installations. These evoke dreamy notions of home, belonging, security, and migration while exploring the relationships between memory and fact, humor and trauma. He culls his materials from the streets of Beijing, sourcing discarded furniture, architectural elements, and quotidian objects.

    “These collaged remnants of people’s homes carry with them the history of a city and the lives of its people,” Pace says. “As viewers are invited to peek inside, they are transformed into voyeurs: imagining their homes, their stories, and perhaps identifying shared experiences, and primed to think of the future.”

    Now on view as part of the vibrant 36th São Paolo Biennial, Song’s work appears among ambitious installations by dozens of artists from around the world. His commissioned piece “Borrow Light” takes the form of a mirrored world brimming with lamps that reflect from every surface, not unlike one of Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Rooms.

    “Borrow Light” (2025). Installation view of the 36th Bienal de São Paulo, ‘Not All Travellers Walk Roads – Of Humanity as Practice’ © Levi Fanan / Fundação Bienal de São Paulo

    The artist considers the concept of “borrowing” in terms of its inherent temporality. He positions it as something of an ethos for understanding our short time on Earth, whether life’s cycles or even the presence of humans at all over the course of millions of evolutionary years.

    Song draws inspiration “from both a carnival’s house of mirrors and the traditional Chinese feng shui method of using mirrors and windows to expand interior space by ushering in the external world,” says an exhibition statement. “Borrow Light” becomes a participatory experience, where visitors’ movements are reflected and illuminated throughout the space. Chairs and lamps, all lent from private homes, provide places for rest and contemplation.

    “Playing with fluid elements such as light, reflection, and illusion, Song’s installation immerses the audience into an infinite universe, where our images and minds become entwined in a silvery, glowing light,” the biennial says.

    Explore more exhibitions and learn about the artist on Pace Gallery’s website.

    Detail of “Same Bed Different Dreams No. 3.” Photo by Damian Griffiths, courtesy of Pace Gallery

    Detail of “Same Bed Different Dreams No. 3.” Photo by Damian Griffiths, courtesy of Pace Gallery

    “Borrow Light” (2025). Installation view of the 36th Bienal de São Paulo, ‘Not All Travellers Walk Roads – Of Humanity as Practice’ © Levi Fanan / Fundação Bienal de São Paulo

    “Borrow Light” (2025). Installation view of the 36th Bienal de São Paulo, ‘Not All Travellers Walk Roads – Of Humanity as Practice’ © Levi Fanan / Fundação Bienal de São Paulo

    Detail of “Same Bed Different Dreams No. 3.” Photo by Damian Griffiths, courtesy of Pace Gallery

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      Found Objects Hold Puerto Rican Lineage in Adrián Viajero Román’s Layered Portraits

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      “Aguas De Libertad” (2012), graphite on wood, cardboard, pastel, 36 x 24 inches. All images courtesy of Adrián Viajero Román, shared with permission

      Found Objects Hold Puerto Rican Lineage in Adrián Viajero Román’s Layered Portraits

      August 13, 2025

      Art

      Grace Ebert

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      “The objects I use often serve as memory keepers,” says Adrián Viajero Román. “Sometimes they find me—objects with history, decay, or presence—and I build a piece around them. Other times, I begin with a story I want to tell and seek materials that can hold that narrative.”

      Román finds an intuitive balance between object and idea, allowing each to influence the other as he melds two-dimensional portraiture with three-dimensional forms like wooden frames, religious iconography, frayed chicken wire, and even an empty can of Goya black beans. These found—and seemingly mundane—items hold stories that reflect the artist’s ongoing interests: memory, migration, and the genealogies we can trace through the objects that accompany us or that we leave behind.

      “Picking Up The Pieces” (2018), portrait of Maria Kerialys Aldea de Jesus of Las Piedras, Puerto Rico, graphite on wood, terry cloth, plastic bottles, newspaper, 24 x 18 inches

      Based between Brooklyn, New Jersey, and Puerto Rico, Román frequently reflects on the experience of the Puerto Rican diaspora and the bifurcated way of living that can emerge when people leave their homelands. He’s deeply interested in the correlations between belonging and displacement and how preserving the past is essential to telling honest stories about ourselves and communities.

      The artist’s works often feature children, who appear as both innocent and supremely knowing. Staring at the viewer with serious eyes, these youthful protagonists might be steadfastly engaged in a game or otherwise posed in a way that suggests impermanence. The child in “Picking Up The Pieces,” for example, grasps a white terrycloth towel in her pudgy hand while sitting atop crunched plastic bottles, a precarious seat that will only hold for so long. Román shares:

      The children become physical, dimensional presences, symbols of possibility and resilience that inhabit our space as reminders of hope and imagination… I often depict children because they carry both the innocence of potential and the clarity of truth. In these works, the children aren’t passive. They’re dreaming, resisting, surviving. They become living monuments, carrying the weight of history while pointing us toward the future.

      In his solo exhibition titled Archivos Vivos at The National Puerto Rican Museum in Chicago, the artist presents his mixed-media sculptures and installations as a sort of journey through Puerto Rican identity. As its name suggests, archival imagery and objects appear frequently to illustrate the various influences on this collective experience.

      “Niño Santo” (2011), graphite and charcoal on wood, window frame, wire, rope, iron claw foot

      As part of this exhibition, Román facilitated a pair of workshops that invited community members to reflect on their own experiences and encounters with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and then create either a paper airplane or boat. Participants also responded to a more profound, enduring question: “What does citizenship mean—especially for Puerto Ricans, whose U.S. citizenship was imposed, not chosen?”

      “This workshop came at a time of heightened urgency,” Román says, noting that just days before the gatherings, federal agents visited the museum unannounced. “It was a chilling reminder that our communities are still being surveilled, targeted, and threatened. This is why we must keep telling our stories—why we gather in these spaces to remember, create, and resist.”

      Archivos Vivos is on view through January 17, 2026. A new installation in his Caja De Memoria Viva series will open this October at the National Portrait Gallery, with a replica to follow for Puro Ritmo at the Smithsonian Latino American Museum in April. Until then, keep up with the artist’s work on his website and Instagram.

      “Mi Caridad” (2010), charcoal and graphite on wood, vintage objects (trunk, photos, toys, washboard, and books), 24 x 36 x 24 inches

      “Caja De Memoria Viva II, Sobrevivientes: Digna Quiles” (2018), charcoal on wood, 48 x 49 x 48 inches

      Interior detail of “Caja De Memoria Viva II, Sobrevivientes: Digna Quiles” (2018), charcoal on wood, 48 x 49 x 48 inches

      “Si Yo Sueño,” graphite on wood, vintage suitcase, wood frame, book, twine, wood toy, 17 x 29 x 6 inches

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      in Art

      Through Stacks of Laundry and Humble Vessels, Danym Kwon Cherishes the Mundane

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      “Dear Moments” (2025), acrylic gouache on canvas, 51 1/4 x 114 1/2 inches. All images courtesy of Hashimoto Contemporary, shared with permission

      Through Stacks of Laundry and Humble Vessels, Danym Kwon Cherishes the Mundane

      August 11, 2025

      Art

      Grace Ebert

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      For Danym Kwon, the concept of home is mutable. The artist (previously) recently relocated to San Jose from her native Seoul, having spent just a few years back in South Korea before realizing that she longed to return to the Bay Area where she lived while her children were young.

      “I may never have had a place to stay forever. But wherever we were together became a home,” Kwon says about her move and the paintings and sculptures that emerged from the experience. “These works are my way of holding onto that—of cherishing the moments that pass too quickly.”

      “A Message of Comfort” (2025), acrylic gouache on canvas in cherry wood foldable frame, 22 1/8 x 33 1/2 x 1 1/8 inches

      On view at Hashimoto Contemporary in New York, Dear Moments presents Kwon’s tender, pastel-hued recollections of family life. Tucked within her signature stacks of laundry are small vignettes of siblings digging in the sand at the beach, a couple wandering through an art museum, and a parent snuggled up in bed with their child and a book. The artist’s vessels are similar, depicting a woman strolling along a candy-colored path or a young boy playing with blocks and a toy car.

      Having worked largely on canvas, she ventures into birch sculpture for this exhibition, plucking the doting characters common within her paintings and presenting them in three dimensions.

      Seemingly mundane, these familial scenes become magical and revered in Kwon’s hands. She beckons viewers into a world where even chores like folding clean clothes offer space for reflection and calm. While we might not treasure such simple moments in the present, Kwon suggests, we should hang on dearly to the small embraces and quiet acts of togetherness that ultimately make us feel at home.

      Dear Moments is on view through August 30. Find more from Kwon on her website and Instagram.

      “Looking together” (2025), acrylic gouache on birch plywood, 9 1/4 x 7 1/4 x 1 1/8 inches

      “A Still Life of You” (2025), acrylic gouache on canvas, 35 3/4 x 28 5/8 inches

      “Sand, Stories and a Small House” (2025), acrylic gouache on canvas, 17 7/8 x 17 7/8 inches

      “Sunday” (2025), acrylic gouache on birch plywood, 12 1/2 x 21 3/4 x 1 1/8 inches

      “My Favorite Path” (2024), acrylic gouache on canvas, 35 3/4 x 28 5/8 inches

      “Little Reader’s Nest” (2025), acrylic gouache on paper in cherry wood frame, 8 1/2 x 8 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches

      Detail of “Dear Moments” (2025), acrylic gouache on canvas, 51 1/4 x 114 1/2 inches

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      Family, Memory, and an Ancestral Craft Converge in Daniela García Hamilton’s Tender Paintings

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      “La sala (The Living Room)” (2025), hand embroidery and oil on canvas (triptych), 27 x 60 inches. Photos by @ofphotostudio Yubo Dong. All images courtesy of the artist and Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles, shared with permission

      Family, Memory, and an Ancestral Craft Converge in Daniela García Hamilton’s Tender Paintings

      July 22, 2025

      ArtCraft

      Kate Mothes

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      Through a mixed-media approach combining oil paint with the soft definition of embroidery fiber, Daniela García Hamilton explores intergenerational bonds in tender, narrative canvases. A first-generation American from a Mexican family, the artist metaphorically links loved ones via thread, incorporating symbols of both Mexican and American geography and imagery of relatives drawn from photographs.

      “García Hamilton investigates legacies of tradition, the inevitability of assimilation, and the ways in which family histories replay themselves over time,” says a statement from Charlie James Gallery, which is currently presenting the artist’s solo exhibition, Amanecer / Atardecer (Sunrise / Sunset).

      “Toyota” (2025), hand embroidery and oil on canvas, 24 x 24 inches

      García Hamilton began incorporating embroidery into her work following the death of her grandfather, whose own experience with textiles and exuberance for storytelling deeply influenced the artist’s interest in the relationship between craft, lineage, and memory. Scenes range from memorable events like weddings to everyday moments in which people gather together at home or for a siesta in the back of a pickup truck.

      Derived from photos in her family archive, García Hamilton’s figurative depictions are immanently relatable. Yet within the broader context of the U.S.’s socio-political climate, especially the current administration’s dubious approach to curbing immigration, there is an undeniable sense of precarity and protectiveness. We’re invited into nostalgic, tender, even vulnerable moments in which every individual’s personality radiates through what the gallery describes as an “inner glow,” emphasizing the significance of togetherness, resilience, and security.

      Amanecer / Atardecer continues through August 2 in Los Angeles. Find more on the artist’s Instagram.

      “El Temerario (The Daredevil)” (2024), hand embroidery and oil on canvas, 30 x 24 inches

      Detail of “La sala (The Living Room)”

      “High Noon” (2024), oil on canvas, 56 x 36 inches

      “Sueña (Dream)” (2024), oil and Sharpie on canvas, 30 x 24 inches

      “En el Jardín de mi abuelo (In My Grandfather’s Garden)” (2025), oil on canvas, 30 x 36 inches

      “Self-portrait as child with my Pa” (2024), colored ink on hot-pressed paper, 48 x 48 inches

      “La boda de mi Tía Rosi (My Aunt Rosi’s Wedding)” (2025), hand embroidery on canvas, 30 x 36 inches

      Detail of “La sala (The Living Room)”

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    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in Art

      In ‘Pu$h Thru,’ Yvette Mayorga Examines Latinx Experience Through Rococo Maximalism

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      “She’s in the cake/Put out the fire, after Nicolas
      Lancret” (2025), collage, glitter, buttons, textile, birthday candles,
      pastel, cardboard, gold foil, silver foil, gold flakes, stickers, cake
      toppers, acrylic marker, acrylic nails, nail charms, and acrylic piping on canvas, 60 x 120 inches. all images courtesy of the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago, shared with permission

      In ‘Pu$h Thru,’ Yvette Mayorga Examines Latinx Experience Through Rococo Maximalism

      June 11, 2025

      Art

      Kate Mothes

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      Known for her delectable, frilly, occasionally ominous acrylic paintings made with bakery tools, Yvette Mayorga (previously) nods to memories of her mother working as a baker and references Baroque and Rococo art while critically examining family, community, and notions of prosperity.

      Mayorga’s pieces are “dominated by shades of pink to critically examine the American Dream and the Latinx experience, often borrowing compositions from personal and family photos and art history,” says Monique Meloche Gallery, which presents a solo show of the artist’s work opening this weekend.

      “W3 R TIR3D” (2025), collage, rhinestones, plastic butterflies, acrylic marker, pastel, silver foil, gold foil, pen, acrylic nails, car sticker, butterflies, glitter, gold flakes, silver flakes, textile, belt, rhinestones, nail charms and acrylic piping on canvas, 48 x 36 inches

      Pu$h Thru, the artist’s first show with the gallery and the first in her hometown of Chicago since 2018, takes a semi-autobiographical approach by reflecting on her experiences during the last decade in the city. Beyond her characteristic confection-inspired works, she has created large-scale compositions incorporating found objects like lampshades, clothing, and jewelry, along with bits of ceramic, pastels, gold foil, acrylic nails, and more.

      Many of these works draw on Mayorga’s personal memories, like snapshots of the artist as a child during a birthday party or sitting in her family’s living room. Converging with romantic Rococo aesthetics and style, like portraits modeled after Elizabeth Vigee Le Brun or Jean-Honoré Fragonard, the artist addresses the Euro-centric narrative of art history and its overarching omission of other identities. Mayorga has even coined a term to describe her approach, “Latinxoco,” which merges Latinx identity with Rococo aesthetics.

      “Pink, a color that has a long history with Mayorga’s practice, is deployed as a conceptual strategy to destabilize Western ideals of skin tone, evoking questions of race, class, and gendered embodiment while also referencing cosmetic and domestic aesthetics—an ironic and radical reclamation of softness as strength,” the gallery says.

      Pu$h Thru runs from June 14 to July 26. See more on the artist’s website and Instagram.

      “La Ursupadora Not 4 Me” (2025), collage, textile, glitter, lamp shade, pen, electrical outlet, hoop earrings, shoes, jeans, marker, pastel, drawer handles, lampshade, ceramic, belt, felt, pastel, clock, stickers, gold flakes, gold foil, mirror, acrylic nails, textile, nail charms, TV control, and acrylic piping on canvas, 60 x 120 inches

      “What’s Hidden Beneath (Remnant Series)” (2025), found objects, nail charms, and acrylic piping on canvas, 16 x 12 inches

      “Hot and Ready” (2025), collage, rhinestones, acrylic marker, silver foil, gold foil, pen, pastel, mirror, acrylic nails, stickers, rhinestones, gold flakes, nail charms, collage, glitter and acrylic piping on canvas, 48 x 36 inches

      “Self Portrait of the Artist After Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun” (2025), textile, collage, stickers, gold flakes, silver flakes, pen, lace, buttons, acrylic nails, nail charms, and acrylic piping on canvas, 72 x 60 inches

      “The Portal (Remnant Series)” (2025), found objects and acrylic piping on canvas, 16 x 12 inches

      “Rhinestone Vaquero After Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun” (2025), textile, rhinestones, buttons, belt buckle, gold flakes, silver flakes, glitter, and acrylic piping on canvas, 72 x 60 inches

      “Taffy Taffy (Remnant Series)” (2025), found objects and acrylic piping on canvas, 16 x 12 inches

      “PU$$H PU$$H THRU” (2025), collage, rhinestones, glitter, acrylic marker, silver foil, gold foil, pen, toy boat, mirror, marker, acrylic nails, stickers, textile, leather, nail charms, and acrylic piping on canvas, 48 x 36 inches

      “La Serpiente (Remnant Series)” (2024), found objects and acrylic piping on canvas, 16 x 12 inches

      Installation view of ‘Pu$h Thru’ at Monique Meloche Gallery

      “Party Favor (Remnant Series)” (2025), found objects, nail charms, party favor, and acrylic piping on canvas, 16 x 12 inches

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    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in Art

      To ‘Walk the House,’ Do Ho Suh Traverses Memory and Perceptions of Home

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      “Rubbing/Loving Project: Seoul Home” (2013-2022), installation view of ‘The Genesis Exhibition: Do Ho Suh: Walk the House.’
      All images © Do Ho Suh, courtesy of the artist, Lehmann Maupin
      New York, Seoul, and London, and Victoria
      Miro. Photo by Jai Monaghan/Tate, shared with permission

      To ‘Walk the House,’ Do Ho Suh Traverses Memory and Perceptions of Home

      April 30, 2025

      Art

      Kate Mothes

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      “Is home a place, a feeling, or an idea?” That’s the lofty yet immanently relatable question at the heart of Do Ho Suh’s major survey open now at Tate Modern. The London-based Korean artist (previously) explores notions of belonging, connection, comfort, security, and familiarity in large-scale installations that replicate his own homes in Seoul, London, and New York, among a range of vibrant multimedia works.

      Suh is known for his use of gossamer fabric to create immersive, monumental installations. In The Genesis Exhibition: Do Ho Suh: Walk the House, the artist “examines the intricate relationship between architecture, space, the body, and the memories and moments that make us who we are,” the museum says.

      “Nest/s” (2024), installation view of ‘The Genesis Exhibition: Do Ho Suh: Walk the House’

      Visitors are invited to walk through “Nest/s,” for example, an expansive assemblage of colorful, sheer textile structures that link together to form a passageway or conduit. As the boundaries between interior and exterior are blurred, we’re invited to experience architecture from the perspective of movement and perception, highlighting how all of our interactions with other homes or places are inherently linked.

      Issues around shelter, safety, and community are inextricably tied to how we perceive home, especially when for many around the world, those basic needs are in constant peril or upended without warning. “Suh asks timely questions about the enigma of home, identity, and how we move through and inhabit the world around us,” a statement says.

      The Genesis Exhibition: Do Ho Suh: Walk the House continues in London through October 19. Plan your visit on the museum’s website, and follow updates on Suh’s Instagram.

      Detail of “Nest/s.” Photo by Jeon Taeg Su

      “Perfect Home: London, Horsham, New York, Berlin, Providence, Seoul” (2024), installation view of ‘The Genesis Exhibition: Do Ho Suh: Walk the House’

      Still from “Robin Hood Gardens, Woolmore Street, London E14 0HG” (2018), commissioned by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London

      “Nest/s” (2024), polyester and stainless steel, 410.1 x 375.4 x 2148.7 centimeters. Photo by Jeon Taeg Su

      Detail of “Rubbing/Loving Project: Seoul Home” (2013-2022), installation view at Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney, Australia. Photo by Sebastian Mrugalski

      “Home Within Home (1/9 Scale)” (2025), installation view of ‘The Genesis Exhibition: Do Ho Suh: Walk the House’

      “Nest/s” (2024), installation view of ‘The Genesis Exhibition: Do Ho Suh: Walk the House’

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      Loosely Woven Burlap Mimics Digital Pixels in Jennifer J. Lee’s Photorealistic Paintings

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      Detail of “Lee Jeans.” All images courtesy of the artist and Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, New York, shared with permission

      Loosely Woven Burlap Mimics Digital Pixels in Jennifer J. Lee’s Photorealistic Paintings

      February 26, 2025

      Art

      Kate Mothes

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      On the loosely woven surface of jute burlap, Brooklyn-based artist Jennifer J. Lee paints photorealistic scenes that explore the saturation of images in contemporary experience. The fabric’s gridded structure conjures associations with pixellated screens, playing with the relationship between digital and analog representations of everyday objects.

      Recent paintings, nearly a dozen of which were on view in the artist’s solo exhibition at Klaus Von Nichtssagend Gallery, highlight a personal glimpse of nostalgia, a fascination with the act of looking, and seemingly banal imagery transfigured into symbolic references and objects.

      “Acid Jeans” (2024), oil on jute, 16 × 12 inches

      Lee’s paintings starkly contrast the instant gratification of scrolling through endless images, challenging the speed at which we consume information. She describes her process as a form of “waking meditation and sustained observation,” translating digital pixels into hand-painted brushstrokes and stretching fabric to simulate screens.

      The artist’s technical ability to translate finite details onto a relatively rugged surface speaks to the time and attention required to produce a single painting. Small in scale, her pieces reveal surprising interactions between the objects’ surfaces and the woven jute.

      Denim, for example, sports its own signature weave, which in works like “Acid Jeans” seems to somehow exist in both harmony and opposition with the burlap. Portraying a smooth object in “Security Mirror” presents the challenge of making glass appear polished while nodding to the graininess we associate with CCTV footage. And a bunch of footprints in sand suggest another kind of graininess altogether, the shadows and subtle colors of which seem to vibrate or flicker thanks to the low-thread-count jute weave.

      Lee’s recent paintings harken back to Y2K, an era on the cusp of immense technological and social change as personal computers, mobile phones, and the internet became more widely available, spawning the social media platforms we still use today—albeit profoundly changed since they first emerged.

      Find more on Instagram.

      “Security Mirror” (2024), oil on jute, 13 × 13 inches

      “Pizza” (2024), oil on jute, 12 × 20 inches

      “Beach” (2024), oil on jute, 12 × 21 inches

      “Tennis” (2024), oil on jute, 22 × 15 inches

      Detail of “Pizza”

      “Lee Jeans” (2024), oil on jute, 15 × 13 inches

      Detail of “Tennis”

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      Adrienna Matzeg’s Punch Needle Embroideries Conjure Nostalgic Summer Road Trips

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      “The Afterglow” and “Catch of the Day.” All images courtesy of Adrienna Matzeg and Tacit Collective, shared with permission

      Adrienna Matzeg’s Punch Needle Embroideries Conjure Nostalgic Summer Road Trips

      February 19, 2025

      ArtCraft

      Kate Mothes

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      No matter where the map directs you, a road trip usually conjures some key elements that make it unique from any other kind of journey. Think quirky roadside attractions, diners, spontaneous snack stops, scenic views, national parks—the list goes on!

      For Adrienna Matzeg, summertime trips inspire a new series of punch needle embroidery works (previously) in a collection titled The Scenic Route, now available through Tacit Collective.

      “Lick-A-Treat”

      The Toronto-based artist merges her interests in photography, textiles, and design to create vibrant, narrative embroidery compositions. “Through reducing the subject matter in her work to simplified colours, shapes, and fragments, she explores how we recall memories, with a specific interest in travel destinations and souvenirs,” says a gallery statement.

      In works like “Catch of the Day,” Matzeg evokes the timeless experience of a pint of brew and a gingham-lined basket of freshly battered fish. “Lighthouse Route” captures a scenic byway sign, and in “The Afterglow,” a grocery store sign advertises summer vacation staples like ice cream cones and pizza by the slice.

      Pieces in The Scenic Route hint at simple joys, brief pauses, and the fading light of day, evoking “in-between” experiences that may seem ordinary enough at the moment but linger in the memory long after summer ends.

      Explore more on the artist’s website and Instagram.

      “Catch of the Day”

      Detail of “Lick-A-Treat”

      “Open”

      Detail of “The Afterglow”

      “Lighthouse Route”

      “At the Lookoff”

      Detail of “At the Lookoff”

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      Deniz Kurdak Crafts Fragility and Resilience in Embroidered Depictions of Porcelain

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      “Pieces on Green,” 25 x 35 centimeters. All images courtesy of Deniz Kurdak, shared with permission

      Deniz Kurdak Crafts Fragility and Resilience in Embroidered Depictions of Porcelain

      January 27, 2025

      ArtCraft

      Kate Mothes

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      “What draws me to the motif of ceramics is the deep sense of belonging they evoke in me,” says Deniz Kurdak. The London-based artist is fascinated by blue-and-white porcelain—a style that originated in China as early as the 7th century and was broadly imitated and collected around the globe—and the way certain pieces inspire familiarity. She adds, “They have even found their way into my grandmother’s home.”

      Themes of identity, belonging, and memory play central roles in Kurdak’s work, as she draws on personal histories and bases her compositions on real objects that remind her of pieces her grandmother owned.

      “Fragments,” 30 x 40 centimeters

      “Growing up with an abusive father, I found sanctuary in my grandparents’ home—a safe, predictable, and nurturing space where I felt accepted,” the artist tells Colossal. “Along with my admiration for blue-and-white porcelain, my passion for textiles and embroidery was passed down to me by my grandmother.”

      Bringing conceptual elements to needlework, a craft traditionally dismissed in art circles as “women’s work,” she emphasizes expression and narrative. “I like to reimagine the acts of cutting, stitching, and embroidering as forms of emotional repair,” she says, “allowing me to reconstruct and navigate the complexities of my personal history.”

      Long associated with its calming and meditative nature, “embroidery has become both a medium and a means of reflection in my artistic process,” Kurdak says. Seemingly at odds with making intimate and methodical stitches, her images suggest the violence of breakage, suddenness, and the relationship between ornament and utility.

      Kurdak is intrigued by dualities—fragility and resilience, belonging and displacement—which mirror the tensions and contradictions of the human condition. Contrasting brittle yet durable porcelain with pliable yet resistant fabric and thread, she highlights polarities in the act of merging the ideas together.

      “Not Even Close,” 48 x 48 centimeters

      Blue-and-white porcelain predominantly inspires Kurdak’s compositions, but she also renders red, green, or multi-colored pieces in textiles, too. She uses a wide range of needlework and fabric techniques, including appliqué, lacework, and embroidery. Vases appear to melt into streams, lacy decorations hover above the surface, and motifs rearrange into puzzle-like grids or dynamic swirls.

      If you’re in London, “Willow” is currently on view at the Young Masters Art Prize Finalists Exhibition through April 8. Kurdak’s work will be included in Collect Art Fair opening in late February at Somerset House, followed by Affordable Art Fair in March in New York. Learn more on her website, and followed updates on Instagram.

      “Willow,” 60 x 60 centimeters

      “Jar Descending,” 120 x 90 centimeters

      “Anguish in Blue,” 27 x 47 centimeters

      Detail “Anguish in Blue”

      “Disjointed,” 49 x 49 centimeters

      “Dissolving Willow,” 55 x 55 centimeters

      “Mother Jar,” 80 x 80 centimeters

      Detail of “Pieces on Green”

      “This Beyond,” 49 x 49 centimeters

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