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In ‘Eyes as Big as Plates,’ Sculptural Garments Camouflage Subjects in Natural Environments
Art
Photography#books
#camouflage
#landscapes
#nature
#portraitsFebruary 11, 2022
Grace EbertEyes as Big as Plates # Andrea (Outer Hebrides 2019)
Hailing from fifteen countries, the individuals participating in Eyes as Big as Plates have backgrounds as varied as their surroundings: there are zoologists, academics, and librarians; fishermen, wild boar hunters, and Sami reindeer herders; and opera singers, kantele players, and artists. They’re tethered by the ongoing project, which dresses each figure in sculptural wearables made of organic materials that allow them to blend in with the surrounding landscape.
Launched in 2011 by Norwegian-Finnish artist duo Karoline Hjorth and Riitta Ikonen (previously), Eyes as Big as Plates hinges on the idea that it’s essential to explore how humans exist within nature. The portraits center on lone figures partially camouflaged with their backdrops or outfitted with imaginative garments constructed with objects found nearby. Boubou (shown below), for example, is a Senegalese fisherman who wears a mesh shawl of sea creatures, while North Tolsta-based photographer Andrea (above) is almost entirely masked by spindly branches and peat near her home. Every portrait comes after a conversation with the subject and a collaborative effort to find the proper location and attire.
The duo has now compiled dozens of photos in a forthcoming book that marks the 10th anniversary of the project. A follow-up to their sold-out first volume, Eyes as Big as Plates 2 is comprised of 52 new portraits, conversations with those featured, and field notes from their travels. “While transcribing the interviews for each of the collaborators here, we got to experience what many of them often say is the most exciting part: ‘ … just being there, looking at a familiar landscape like you’ve never looked at it before. Letting the surroundings wash over you,’” they write.
Eyes as Big as Plates 2 is currently available for pre-order on the project’s site. Some of the series is on view through June at the landmarked entry at 200 5th Avenue in New York and will be up this May at London’s Barbican and at the Harbourfront Centre in Toronto in September.Eyes as Big as Plates # Boubou (Tasmania 2019)
Eyes as Big as Plates # Liv (Norway 2017)
Eyes as Big as Plates # Momodou Toucouleur (Senegal 2019)
Eyes as Big as Plates # Mr Oh (South Korea 2017)
Eyes as Big as Plates # Niels (Faroe Islands 2015)
Eyes as Big as Plates # Scotty (Tasmania 2019)
Eyes as Big as Plates # Sinikka (Norway 2019)#books
#camouflage
#landscapes
#nature
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Serene Wooded Landscapes Nestle Inside Introspective Silhouette Paintings by Megan Aline
Art
#acrylic
#landscapes
#nature
#painting
#silhouettesJanuary 24, 2022Grace Ebert“Everything Changes,” acrylic on panel, 16 x 12 inches. All images © Megan Aline, shared with permissionIn Unseen Roots, artist Megan Aline fills silhouettes with brush, autumn foliage, and tall, skinny trees that span from torso to crown. Her solo show at Robert Lange Studio in Charleston consists of dozens of acrylic works that expose a small glimpse of a landscape hidden within each figure. “As we become increasingly disconnected from the natural world, I think the memory of nature becomes even stronger inside each of us,” the artist shares. “If you only spent weekends in the woods or summers at your grandmothers or you have a park you visit from time to time, it becomes the quiet space inside you that you can escape to even when you aren’t there.”To render the contemplative works, Aline paints inside a stenciled silhouette on panel, which creates crisp outlines of each figure—she shares videos of this process on Instagram—and visible brushstrokes in pastel and neutral tones comprise the paintings’ backdrops. “As an artist, I spend a lot of time reflecting inwardly as I paint outwardly,” she writes. “I like the idea that we have an ‘inner landscape,’ a map created from emotions, ideas, and sensations collected throughout our lives.”Unseen Roots is on view through January 28, and you can shop prints of Aline’s introspective silhouettes on her site. (via Supersonic Art)“Deepest Pathways,” acrylic on panel, 16 x 16 inches“Deeper Time,” acrylic on panel, 20 x 20 inchesTop: “Constantly Growing,” acrylic on panel, 20 x 30 inches. Bottom left: “Emergence,” acrylic on panel, 18 x 24 inches. Bottom right: “Radiance,” acrylic on panel, 16 x 16 inches“Deeper Change,” acrylic on panel, 20 x 20 inches“Positive Light,” acrylic on panel, 8 x 8 inches“An Underlying Message,” acrylic on panel, 24 x 24 inches“Beyond the Surface,” acrylic on panel, 16 x 16 inches
#acrylic
#landscapes
#nature
#painting
#silhouettesDo 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
Foliage Sprouts from Four Imaginative Clay Illustrations by Irma Gruenholz
Art
Illustration
#ceramics
#leaves
#nature
#sculptureDecember 15, 2021Grace EbertAll images © Irma Gruenholz, shared with permissionIt’s easy to mistake Irma Gruenholz’s whimsical ceramic figures for two-dimensional illustrations. The Madrid-based artist (previously) is known for her sculptures and still lifes in clay that resemble flat graphics and drawings, although her works require precise positioning and photographing before they’re printed in the pages of a magazine or children’s book.In addition to working on commissions for major publications and brands in the last few years, Gruenholz’s most recent projects include four imaginative figures tattooed with foliage and sprouting leafy branches from their heads. “During Covid lockdown, I have had time to reflect and realize how important it is to respect your internal rhythm when you are creating,” she says. “I think there has to be another way of living, a slow life good for the people and for the planet.”Head to Behance and Instagram for glimpses into the process behind these fantastical figures and to explore a larger archive of the artist’s illustrative work.
#ceramics
#leaves
#nature
#sculptureDo 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
Ephemeral Compositions Use Sand and Stone to Create Hypnotic Works on Land
Art#land art
#nature
#sand
#stoneNovember 19, 2021
Grace EbertAll images © Jon Foreman, shared with permission
The wildly prolific Wales-based artist Jon Foreman has spent much of 2021 on a new batch of mesmerizing land pieces. Expanding on the swirling, organic shapes he’s known for, many of his recent works take on minimal, geometric formations in diagonal stripes or colorful, concentric circles. Foreman created a 2022 calendar featuring some of the compositions shown here—ordering instructions are on his Instagram—and you can find prints of his ephemeral pieces in his shop.#land art
#nature
#sand
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Reality and Imagined Meditative States Converge in Tomás Sánchez’s Tranquil Landscapes
Art#acrylic
#graphite
#landscapes
#nature
#painting
#trees
#waterNovember 16, 2021
Grace Ebert“Light: Outside, Inside” (2021), acrylic on linen, 100 x 80 centimeters. All images © Tomás Sánchez, shared with permission
Through serene, idyllic landscapes, Tomás Sánchez visualizes his long-harbored fascination with meditation. The practice, the Cuban painter says, is “where I find many of the answers to questions that transcend from the personal to the universal. Meditation is not always a fleeting time. Meditation is not a punctual exercise; it is a constant practice.”
Rather than conceptualize the exercise as a temporary state, Sánchez views mediation as a lens to interpret the world, a recurring theme that has foregrounded much of his work during the last few decades. His acrylic paintings and hazy graphite drawings, which take months if not years to complete, highlight the immensity and awe-inspiring qualities of a forest thick with vegetation or a nearby waterfall and offer perspective through a lone, nondescript figure often found amongst the trees. Distinct and heavily detailed, the realistic landscapes aren’t based on a specific place but rather are imagined spaces available only through a ruminative state.
If you’re in New York, stop by Marlborough Gallery to see Sánchez’s solo show, which is on view from November 18 to January 22. Titled Inner Landscape, the exhibition encompasses multiple pieces never shown before, including the pristine scenes shown here. Until then, explore more of his works on Instagram.“Inner Lagoon…Thought-Cloud” (2016), acrylic on canvas, 200 x 199.3 centimeters
“La batalla” (2015), acrylic on linen, 200 x 250 centimeters
“El río va” (2020), acrylic on linen, 121.3 x 99.1 centimeters
“Aislado” (2015), acrylic on canvas, 199.7 x 249.9 centimeters
“Diagonales” (2018), conté crayon on paper, 30.5 x 40.6 centimeters#acrylic
#graphite
#landscapes
#nature
#painting
#trees
#waterDo 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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Artificial Neon Lights Illuminate the Idyllic Environments Painted by Artist Gigi Chen
Art#acrylic
#birds
#nature
#neon
#paintingOctober 8, 2021
Grace Ebert“A Good Foundation” (2021), acrylic on wood, 20 x 20 inches. All images © Gigi Chen, shared with permission
In her vibrant, neon-lit paintings, artist Gigi Chen intertwines ornate jewelry, graffiti, and glowing signs emblematic of urban life with foliage, feathers, and wide expanses of sky. Her acrylic pieces center on birds and other small animals in their natural environments with surreal, manufactured additions: a heron cradles a bright pink house on its back, two rabbits peer over a bush at an illuminated parking sign, and an owl carries an old payphone across a glacial landscape.
A lifelong New Yorker, Chen tells Colossal that once her family immigrated to the U.S. from Guangdong, China, when she was eight months old, they didn’t often venture beyond the city’s confines. “The fear of not being able to communicate clearly with strangers was very prevalent growing up, and it really restrained us from doing too much traveling during my early childhood even though my parents could drive,” she says, noting that it wasn’t until an artist residency in Vermont when she was 18 that she found herself interacting with nature. “I realized how small the Big City really is. I was terrified of the pitch blackness, the dense forest, and the dirt and the bugs. But I was totally in love and overwhelmed by how sublime and random nature is.”
These early experiences continue to impact Chen’s work as she confronts lush, forest ecosystems and cloudy sunsets through the lens of city life. “The dichotomy of the neon onto natural subjects like leaves and birds and trees makes for beautiful metaphors about how people relate to the flora and fauna,” she says. “Adding artificial light sources to a natural environment helped me to reimagine and expand the kinds of stories I could tell and broaden how I could convey personal messages.”“Home Away From Home Away From Home” (2021), acrylic on wood, 20 x 24 inches
Many of the animal protagonists embody the artist’s experiences particularly those in her new series Light My Way Home, which is on view through October 24 at Antler Gallery in Portland. The metaphorical works are ruminations on home, family, and the security those two provide, and the pieces often portray the artist and her sisters as red-winged blackbirds with her late mother as the blue heron. “Home Away From Home Away From Home,” which depicts the three smaller birds encircling the other as she flies away, “represents what happened after the death of my mother,” Chen says. “Here, we are seeking the sense of safety and stability that my mother once represented to us and endlessly chasing the Ideal of Home.”
In addition to Light My Way Home, Chen also has paintings available through Stone Sparrow Gallery and Deep Space Gallery, and you can follow her works on Instagram. (via Supersonic Art)“Curiously Illuminated” (2021), acrylic on wood, 16 x 20 inches
“Finding A Spot” (2020), acrylic on wood, 11 x 14 inches
“Three Voices & A Song” (2021), acrylic on wood, 20 x 24 inches
“The Open Pigeon” (2020), acrylic on wood, 5 x 7 inches
“Call Me” (2021), acrylic on wood, 20 x 24 inches
“Lighting The Way” (2021), acrylic on wood, 16 x 20 inches#acrylic
#birds
#nature
#neon
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Circular Masses of Coral and Leaves Form Sculptural Embroideries by Meredith Woolnough
Art
Craft#coral
#embroidery
#leaves
#nature
#videoOctober 4, 2021
Grace Ebert[embedded content]
From swirls of eucalyptus leaves to perfectly round bodies of coral, the sculptural pieces by Newcastle-based artist Meredith Woolnough (previously) depict a range of textured, organic shapes. Each elaborately crafted work is drawn through free-motion embroidery, which involves using the most basic stitches on a sewing machine and moving a swath of water-soluble material around the needle. Once the form is complete, Woolnough dissolves the fabric base to expose the delicate, mesh-like structure, a process filmmaker Flore Vallery-Radot follows in the studio visit above.
The resulting works either stand alone as sprawling clusters of veins and branches or are strung into larger displays, like the “carpet of embroidery” Woolnough is working on currently that involves more than 1,000 small pieces threaded together. No matter the size, each piece contrasts thick lines with fine, sparse patches to give the leaves or rocky formations shape, and the artist describes the balance between the two methods:
Often when I depict solid subject matter, like coral which is often quite hard, I will stitch my design with dense areas of stitching. I like to put lots of small overlapping stitches very close together to form a solid structure where you can’t clearly see the individual stitches. This dense structure is needed to help the final embroidery hold its shape once I remove the water-soluble base material I stitch onto. With this dense stitching, I can also achieve subtle colour blending as I change thread colours.
Alongside her practice, Woolnough teaches a variety of workshops and released a book back in 2018 titled Organic Embroidery that details her processes. Some of her smaller works will be included in a group exhibition at The Royal Botanic Garden Sydney, which opens online on October 16. You also can find her available pieces on her site and watch for updates on Instagram. (via The Kids Should See This)Eucalyptus leaves. All images © Meredith Woolnough, shared with permission
Corallite
Red coral
Eucalyptus leaf
Coral
Corallimorph
Coral#coral
#embroidery
#leaves
#nature
#videoDo 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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