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Minuscule Landscapes and Tiny Creatures Nestle Inside Painted Pennies and Other Coins
Art
#coins
#landscapes
#miniature
#mushrooms
#oil painting
#painting
February 15, 2022
Grace Ebert More
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Outlandish Cat High-Jinks Become Adorable Miniatures Sculpted by Meetissai
Art
#cats
#epoxy
#humor
#miniature
#sculptureDecember 30, 2021Grace EbertAll images © MeetissaiFluffy catpuccinos, stealthy shorthairs squeezed into bizarre positions, and gymnastics-prone tabbies: Inspired by the real life antics of feline companions, Meetissai crafts tiny sculptures that preserve the ridiculous, most charming moments of cat life—these include fluffy characters flattened like rugs and cartoon-like distortions—as adorable miniatures. The artist often references popular memes and glitched photos, skewed perspectives, and serendipitous timing to craft the fantastically posed animals, and you can find an entire menagerie of epoxy creatures on Twitter and Instagram.
#cats
#epoxy
#humor
#miniature
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Miniature Watercolor Works by Ruby Silvious Are Painted on Stained Teabags
Art
Illustration
#landscapes
#miniature
#painting
#tea
#watercolorNovember 26, 2021Grace EbertAll images © Ruby Silvious, shared with permissionRuby Silvious’s quaint seaside scenes and bucolic landscapes nestle between the torn edges and wrinkled folds of a used teabag. The Coxsackie, New York-based artist (previously) paints miniature scenes of everyday life on the stained paper pouches, leaving the string and tags intact as a reminder of the repurposed material’s origin. Silvious sells prints of her watercolor pieces on her site, and you can follow her latest projects and news about upcoming exhibitions—she will be showing her upcycled works in France and Japan in 2022—on Instagram.
#landscapes
#miniature
#painting
#tea
#watercolorDo stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member and support independent arts publishing. Join a community of like-minded readers who are passionate about contemporary art, help support our interview series, gain access to partner discounts, and much more. Join now! Share this story More - in Art
Quippy Interventions by Michael Pederson Are Camouflaged as Legitimate Street Signs
Art#humor
#miniature
#signs
#urban interventionSeptember 15, 2021
Grace EbertAll images courtesy of Michael Pederson
Working as Miguel Marquez Outside, artist Michael Pederson (previously) installs signage around urban areas that at first glance, might appear as an average city-issued nameplate or placard. His clever interventions mimic official warnings and notices in design and placement, disguising their witty messages and unusual purposes. In some of his more recent pieces, Pederson dubs a sagging bench the “Endless Waiting Area,” marks a grassy runway as a pigeon terminal, and installs a miniature wonderland down a drainage tube. Although the artist primarily works in Australia, you can find his unexpected projects in cities around the world, which you can see more of on Instagram.#humor
#miniature
#signs
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Bizarre Wide-Eyed Hybrids Reflect Imagined Landscapes in Naoto Hattori’s Miniature Paintings
Art#animals
#miniature
#painting
#surrealSeptember 3, 2021
Grace Ebert“Green Walk.” All images © Naoto Hattori, shared with permission
At once adorable and unnervingly surreal, the fantastical creatures rendered by Naoto Hattori (previously) seamlessly meld the myriad textures and colors found in nature into unusual hybrids. They’re often fluffy, equipped with horns in surprising spots, and bear eyes so inordinately large and glassy that they reflect full-scale landscapes. Whether a furry sea horse-like character or a large bulbous head floating mid-air, the figures are musings on Hattori’s experiences. “When I (am) lucid dreaming, I imagine myself as a floating hybrid creature or something in harmony with nature,” he tells Colossal.
Primarily working in acrylic, the Japanese artist keeps his paintings small in scale, opting for miniature boards that generally don’t stretch more than six inches. He welcomes the technical challenge of such tiny spaces, although the size constraint originally developed when he was diagnosed with severe cervical spondylosis about 10 years ago. “When I tried to draw with my elbows and shoulders, my fingertips became numb and I couldn’t control the brush,” he says. “If it’s about the size of a notebook, I can draw without moving my neck or shoulders… So currently, I’m painting a smaller size that allows me to draw freely with the movements of my wrists and fingertips.”
Hattori, who recently relocated from New York to his hometown of Yokohama, Japan, will be part of The Blab Show opening at Santa Monica’s CoproGallery on September 11. You can glimpse his process on Instagram, and shop originals and prints on his site.“Regeneration 3”
Left: “Floating.” Right: “Regeneration 2”
“Mind Pollinator”
“Lucid Dreamer”
Left: “Rooster.” Right: “Sing for Joy”
“Baby Fungus”
“Inner Sound”#animals
#miniature
#painting
#surrealDo stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member and support independent arts publishing. Join a community of like-minded readers who are passionate about contemporary art, help support our interview series, gain access to partner discounts, and much more. Join now!
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Precise Replicas Cast Wildlife and Plants as Delightfully Tiny Sculptures
Art
Craft#animals
#birds
#clay
#miniature
#sculpturesJuly 14, 2021
Grace EbertAll images © Fanni Sandor, shared with permission
Fanni Sandor (previously) melds her background in biology with a decades-long enthusiasm for miniatures by creating an adorable menagerie of minuscule wildlife. Based in Hungary, she sculpts 1:12 scale models of leaping squirrels and multicolor tree frogs from clay and soft fibers and more recently has ventured into larger ecosystems populated by speckled mushrooms, ferns, and the tiniest tulips. Sandor’s biologically accurate models are sold out on Etsy right now, but keep an eye on shop updates by following her on Instagram.#animals
#birds
#clay
#miniature
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Single Eyes Gaze Out of Antique Cutlery, Tins, and Other Objects in Miniature Paintings by Robyn Rich
Art#eyes
#found objects
#miniature
#oil painting
#paintingJune 10, 2021
Grace EbertAll images © Robyn Rich, shared with permission
The Georgian era saw the rise in a jewelry trend that’s equally sentimental and peculiar: to remember spouses who had died or to honor clandestine affairs without revealing anyone’s identity, people would commission tiny renderings of a person’s eye to be painted on broaches, rings, and other accessories they could carry with them. Similar to a lock of hair or portrait hidden in a locket, the abstracted feature was anonymous and indiscernible to most but deeply personal to the wearer.
Robyn Rich evokes this centuries-old fad with a substantial body of work that nestles minuscule oil paintings into cutlery, tins, and other antique vessels. “With a love of reusing and recycling, the found objects I use give a simple and often nostalgic canvas, which offers little distraction, allowing the beauty of the eye to be the focus,” she says. “These objects that we use every day are often taken for granted, overlooked, and forgotten, but in my work, they have another life and help tell a story.”
Whether centered on the eyes, nose, or lips, each realistic snippet conveys a wide range of human emotions—the expressive works capture everything from surprise and worry to contentment—through a single, isolated feature. “I paint friends, total strangers, and the eyes from painted portraits from the past. Each eye I paint becomes a little part of me,” the Frankston, Australia-based artist says.
Alongside her ongoing series of works on domestic objects, Rich is currently collaborating with designer Kelty Pelechytik on a collection of custom wearables. She also has an upcoming solo show at fortyfivedownstairs in Melbourne. Titled I See You, the exhibition is the culmination of a call Rich put out in 2019 for women and female-identifying people to share their portraits and stories with her, resulting in more than 100 pieces that will be on view this October. Until then, find an extensive archive of her miniatures on Instagram.#eyes
#found objects
#miniature
#oil painting
#paintingDo stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member and support independent arts publishing. Join a community of like-minded readers who are passionate about contemporary art, help support our interview series, gain access to partner discounts, and much more. Join now!
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Miniature Architectural Spaces Nestle into Carved Chunks of Raw Marble
Art#architecture
#marble
#miniature
#sculpture
#stone
#stone carvingMay 25, 2021
Grace Ebert“Tetraconch II” (2019), Faxe limestone, 38 centimeters. All images © Matthew Simmonds, shared with permission
Since antiquity, marble has been a preferred material for sculptors and architects alike because of its relative softness and the unlikelihood that it’ll shatter. British artist Matthew Simmonds (previously) fuses these two traditional forms and honors their history with his miniature models carved into hunks of the raw stone. Evoking ancient ruins and sacred architecture—most pieces aren’t modeled after specific structures—the chiseled sculptures are complete with grand archways, ornately tiled ceilings, and minuscule statues on display in their halls.
Within the spaces, Simmonds contrasts the rough, jagged edges of the stone with precise angles and detailed flourishes. “Drawing on the formal language and philosophy of architecture the work explores themes of positive and negative form, the significance of light and darkness, and the relationship between nature and human endeavor,” he says in a statement.
See more of the artist’s carved interiors, which are often less than a foot wide, on his site.“Mystras” (2020), Carrara marble, 39 centimeters
Left: “Essay in Perpendicular” (2018), limestone, 42 centimeters. Right: “Window” (2020), limestone, 24 centimeters
Detail of “Hidden Landscape II” (2019), Carrara marble, 180 centimeters
“Gothic Passage II” (2021), limestone, 25.5 centimeters
Left: “Single Helix II” (2019), Faxe limestone, 24 centimeters. Right: “Landscape: study” (2020), limestone, 10 centimeters
Detail of “Basilica V” (2020), Carrara marble, 170 centimeters
“Stepwell” (2020), Faxe limestone, 39 centimeters
Detail of “Stepwell” (2020), Faxe limestone, 39 centimeters#architecture
#marble
#miniature
#sculpture
#stone
#stone carvingDo stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member and support independent arts publishing. Join a community of like-minded readers who are passionate about contemporary art, help support our interview series, gain access to partner discounts, and much more. Join now!
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