More stories

  • in

    In London, an Enormous Exhibition of 500+ Works Roots Out the Creative Seeds of Flowers

    Rebecca Louise Law, “Calyx” (2023). Image courtesy of the artist

    In London, an Enormous Exhibition of 500+ Works Roots Out the Creative Seeds of Flowers

    January 29, 2025

    ArtNaturePhotography

    Grace Ebert

    Share

    Pin

    Email

    Bookmark

    In nature, flowers serve as an essential component of the reproduction process. But for humans, scented blooms are ripe with myriad meanings and symbolism that transcend their biological functions.

    During Victorian times, offering a bouquet to someone with your right hand indicated a non-verbal “yes,” while a yellow carnation would reject an admirer. Similarly in art history, wilting flowers rendered as a momento mori remind us of death’s inevitability, and for van Gogh, sunflowers were the perfect stand-in for gratitude.

    Aimée Hoving, “Compost” (2019). Image © Aimee Hoving, flowers by Brigitte Gentis van Dam Merrett

    A massive exhibition opening next month at Saatchi Gallery cultivates a vast repertoire of works that explores how blooms have become an omnipresent entity in human life and creativity. Flowers: Flora in Contemporary Art and Culture brings together more than 500 photographs, installations, sculptures, archival pieces, and other objects to create a rich landscape spanning millennia.

    Anchoring the exhibition is an expansive and immersive work of 100,000-plus dried flowers by Rebecca Louise Law. Smaller pieces include Xuebing Du’s ethereal photos of flowers in natural light, VOYDER’s streaky steam-laden compositions, and lush, vibrant gardens by Faye Bridgewater.

    Opening in time to usher in spring in London, Flowers runs from February 12 to May 5.

    VOYDER, “In Love with the Idea of You” (2024). Image courtesy of the artist

    Kasia Wozniak, “Anemoia #7.” Image courtesy of the artist

    Sandra Kantanen, “Still Life (Flowers I).” Image courtesy the artist and Purdy Hicks Gallery

    Xuebing Du, “Mother of Pearl” (2018). Image courtesy of the artist

    Carmen Mitrotta, “Geometric Leaves.” Image courtesy the artist

    Faye Bridgewater, “En Masse” (2025). Image courtesy of the artist

    Ann von Freyburg, “Floral Arrangement 1 (After Jan van Huysum, Still Life).” Image courtesy of the artist

    Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member now, and support independent arts publishing.

    Hide advertising

    Save your favorite articles

    Get 15% off in the Colossal Shop

    Receive members-only newsletter

    Give 1% for art supplies in K-12 classrooms

    Join us today!

    $7/month

    $75/year

    Explore membership options

    Next article More

  • in

    A Provocative Photography Exhibition Invites You to Experience ‘Chromotherapia’

    Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari, “Toiiletpaper.” Image courtesy of ‘Toiletpaper.’

    A Provocative Photography Exhibition Invites You to Experience ‘Chromotherapia’

    January 28, 2025

    ArtBooksPhotography

    Kate Mothes

    Share

    Pin

    Email

    Bookmark

    In the world of photography, the color image has long held an inferior reputation to black-and-white, which connoisseurs historically deemed to be more dignified. Today, vibrant images are embraced in a wide range of fields, from fine art and fashion to advertising and journalism.

    Championing the potential of the medium, artist Maurizio Cattelan and French Academy in Rome—Villa Medici director Sam Stourdzé curated Chromotherapia: The Feel-Good Color Photography.

    Martin Parr, “Common Sense.” Image © Magnum Photos

    Color therapy, though deemed a pseudoscience, has its roots in color theory, which focuses on interactions between hues and how they affect our moods and emotions.

    Cattelan and Stourdzé emphasize ebullient hyperreality, humor, and the absurd through works like Juno Calypso’s “Chicken Dogs,” in which an anonymous figure lies face-down next to a can of hot dogs, or Walter Candoha’s expressive pets. And in “Toiletpaper,” by Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari, who co-founded a magazine of the same name in 2010, a man sits on a tan couch, wearing a matching suit, covered in spaghetti.

    In total, twenty artists explore a range of approaches in the exhibition, from portraits of people and animals to food and uncanny tableaux. “Many have freed themselves from the documentary function of the photographic medium to explore the common roots of the image and the imaginary, flirting with pop art, surrealism, bling, kitsch, and the baroque,” says a statement.

    Chromotherapia opens February 28 and continues through June 9 in Rome, and an accompanying catalogue published by Damiani is slated for release in March in the U.K. and May in the U.S. Pre-order your copy in the Colossal Shop.

    Cover of ‘Chromotherapia’ (2025). Featured image by Walter Chandoha, “New Jersey” (1962). Image ©️ Walter Chandoha Archive

    Juno Calypso, “Chicken Dogs” (2015), archival pigment print. Image © Courtesy the artist and TJ Boulting

    William Wegman, “Ski Patrol” (2017). Image courtesy of Galerie George-Philippe & Nathalie Vallois

    The back cover of Damiani’s catalogue for the exhibition ‘Chromotherapia: The Feel-Good Color Photography,’ featuring a photo by Walter Chandoha

    Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member now, and support independent arts publishing.

    Hide advertising

    Save your favorite articles

    Get 15% off in the Colossal Shop

    Receive members-only newsletter

    Give 1% for art supplies in K-12 classrooms

    Join us today!

    $7/month

    $75/year

    Explore membership options

    Previous articleNext article More

  • in

    Our Favorite Stories of 2024

    All images © Todd Antony, shared with permission

    Our Favorite Stories of 2024

    December 13, 2024

    ArtColossalHistoryPhotographySocial Issues

    Colossal

    Share

    Pin

    Email

    Bookmark

    As we look back at the hundreds of remarkable initiatives, artworks, discoveries, and events we’ve chronicled throughout 2024, we’re continually awed by the creative work we’re able to write about everyday. It’s a privilege to be able to share so much creativity with you, and we thought we’d compile a list of our favorites.

    Below, you’ll find eight picks—two from each of us—that showcase just a few of the remarkable projects we published over the past twelve months. Many of these articles impart deeper context, delve into personal experiences through interviews, and highlight important stories that may have flown under the radar.

    You might also enjoy our readers’ choice top articles of the year and Colossal’s favorite books of 2024. Happy reading!

    —Christopher, Grace, Kate, and Jackie

    Image © Irina Werning

    Jackie’s Pick: In ‘Las Pelilargas,’ Irina Werning Celebrates the Impeccably Long Hair of Latin American Women and Girls

    For the last 17 years, Irina Werning has traveled throughout Latin America photographing women and girls for her ongoing series, Las Pelilargas, or The Longhairs. Shot in color and black and white, the portraits document a distinct cultural practice through an incredibly alluring, even surreal lens.

    L.V. Hull at her home in Kosciusko, Mississippi, in 2002. Photo by Bruce West. Image courtesy of the L.V. Hull Legacy Center

    Grace’s Pick: The Home Studio of the Late Artist L.V. Hull Is Added to the National Register of Historic Places

    Kosciusko is a small town in the center of Mississippi with just under 7,000 residents. Known as the birthplace of Oprah Winfrey, Kosciusko was also home to the late artist L.V. Hull (1942–2008) who devoted her life to painting and assembling found objects.

    Ellie Hannon works on one of her paintings on the aft deck during sunset on the Timor Sea around Ashmore Reef. Images © Schmidt Ocean Institute

    Kate’s Pick: Art and Science Set Sail in Schmidt Ocean Institute’s Artist-at-Sea Program

    “There are many ways to tell a story or to document and share research and discoveries,” says artist Ellie Hannon, one of 54 artists who have embarked on a unique residency organized by the Schmidt Ocean Institute. From slip-cast porcelain and painting to 3D printing and virtual reality, the storytelling possibilities are endless in the Artist-at-Sea program, which invites artists to work alongside scientists on weeks-long expeditions into some of the least-explored areas of our oceans. More

  • in

    Ethereal, Glowing Curtains Drape Over Lake Michigan in Reuben Wu’s Light Paintings

    Ethereal, Glowing Curtains Drape Over Lake Michigan in Reuben Wu’s Light Paintings

    December 10, 2024

    ArtPhotography

    Kate Mothes

    Share

    Pin

    Email

    Bookmark

    Along the Lake Michigan shoreline, Reuben Wu (previously) created a unique confluence of light shows over the water last summer. Known for creating light paintings in dramatic landscapes using drone-mounted lasers, his ongoing series SIREN marks a new direction of illuminated “aeroglyphs,” which transcend their original geometries to open up into more fluid shapes.

    “This series captures ephemeral, curtain-like structures that hover delicately in space, shaped by their environment rather than imposing upon it,” Wu says. The cascading white forms mimic the lake’s rolling waves and, on this particular evening amid a Perseids meteor shower, the surprise appearance of the northern lights. See more on his website.

    Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member now, and support independent arts publishing.

    Hide advertising

    Save your favorite articles

    Get 15% off in the Colossal Shop

    Receive members-only newsletter

    Give 1% for art supplies in K-12 classrooms

    Join us today!

    $7/month

    $75/year

    Explore membership options

    Previous articleNext article More

  • in

    Colossal’s Top Articles of 2024

    Image courtesy of Wally Dion

    Colossal’s Top Articles of 2024

    December 10, 2024

    ArtColossalDesignHistoryNaturePhotography

    Colossal

    Share

    Pin

    Email

    Bookmark

    Throughout 2024, we were awed by archaeological finds, vibrant paintings, striking sculptures, remarkable photography, immersive installations, and so much more. It’s tough to choose only 10 top articles for the year!

    Lucky for us, dear Colossal readers, you’ve helped pick the best. Below, dive into our most-read stories on the site during the past twelve months, and find hundreds more in the archive.

    “Untitled (after François Gérard)” (2023), oil on canvas, 100 x 80 centimeters. Images © Ewa Juszkiewicz, courtesy of Almine Rech

    Ewa Juszkiewicz’s Reimagined Historical Portraits of Women Scrutinize the Nature of Concealment

    From elaborate hairstyles to hypertrophied mushrooms, an array of unexpected face coverings feature in Ewa Juszkiewicz’s portraits. Drawing on genteel likenesses of women primarily from the 18th and 19th centuries, the artist superimposes fabric, bouquets of fruit, foliage, and more, over the women’s faces.

    Image courtesy of Greg Jensen

    A Rare Cross-Section Illustration Reveals the Infamous Happenings of Kowloon Walled City

    At its height in the 1990s, Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong housed about 50,000 people. Its population is unremarkable for small cities, but what set Kowloon apart from others of its size was its density. For a now out-of-print book titled Kowloon City: An Illustrated Guide, artist Hitomi Terasawa drew a meticulous cross-sectioned rendering of the urban phenomenon to preserve its memory.

    Image © Isak Finnbogason

    Remarkable Drone Footage Captures a New Volcanic Eruption in Iceland

    In January, photographer and drone pilot Isak Finnbogason captured stunning footage of an eruption on Iceland’s Reykjanes peninsula in December, documenting the nearly two-mile-long lava vent on the first day it was active. 

    “Water Lilies in Bloom” (2023), oil on canvas. Image courtesy of Erin Hanson

    Landscapes Radiate Light and Drama in Erin Hanson’s Vibrant Oil Paintings

    In vivid pinks, blues, and greens, radiant landscapes emerge in Erin Hanson’s impressionistic oil paintings. The artist is based in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, where the rolling hills and surrounding mountain ranges cradle miles of vineyards.

    Image © Richard Johnson

    Framed by Frozen Lakes, Richard Johnson’s ‘Ice Huts’ Capture Wintertime Communities in Canada

    Every year, Ontario’s 279-square-mile Lake Simcoe draws more people for its ice fishing than any other lake in North America, attracting upwards of 4,000 huts each year. The colorful villages caught the eye of Toronto-based architectural photographer Richard Johnson (1957-2021), who captured hundreds of the structures, from the artistic to the ad-hoc, in a series of bold portraits taken between 2007 and 2019.

    Image courtesy of the Italian Ministry of Culture / AFP Photo

    Archaeologists Discover an Extraordinary 2,100-Year-Old Mosaic Near the Colosseum

    Early this year, we shared news that the Italian Ministry of Culture had a remarkable find in the heart of Rome. In the late Republican era, a luxurious townhouse had been laden with designs made from shells, glass, white marble, and Egyptian blue tiles. A large “rustic” mosaic dating to the last decades of the 2nd century B.C.E.—a little over 2,100 years ago—was likely inspired by the decorative styles of Near East monarchies.

    ‘The Whole Booke of Psalmes.’ London: Company of Stationers, 1643. Image courtesy of The Grolier Club

    Spanning Seven Centuries, ‘Judging a Book by its Cover’ Celebrates an Enduring Art

    The Grolier Club’s exhibition, Judging a Book by its Cover, highlighted some of the most unique editions within its collection, including a pigskin- and brass-bound Jewish Antiquities and the Jewish War created for a Benedictine monastery in Bavaria around 1473—the oldest in the club’s library. The collection also features several religious texts, like the miniature book of psalms shown above, made by women at the Royal Exchange in London with a variety of silk and gold threads.

    Image courtesy of Wally Dion, shared with permission

    Vivid, Translucent Quilts by Wally Dion Stitch Together Indigenous Culture and Making Traditions

    For many rural and economically strapped communities throughout history, quilting was a necessity. Tattered clothing and blankets were cut up and refashioned into new blankets, their patchwork styles evidence of the fabrics’ earlier uses. For Indigenous people, though, quilts “hold a particularly important cultural value,” says artist Wally Dion, “appearing as gifts, ceremonial objects, and celebratory markers.”

    “লয় [Loy]” (2019), Arjunpur Amra Sabai Club, Kolkata. Photo by Vivian Sarky. Image courtesy of Asim Waqif

    Immersive Bamboo Installations by Asim Waqif Whirl and Heave in Monumental Motion

    In his monumental, swirling structures, Delhi-based artist Asim Waqif merges tenets of architecture and sculpture into sweeping site-specific compositions. Using natural materials like bamboo and pandanus leaves, he often incorporates found objects, scaffolding, sound elements, cloth, and rope.

    “Animal in the Wind” (2014), clay, 36.7 x 20.8 x 30 centimeters. Image courtesy of JiSook Jung

    From Fire to Wind, JiSook Jung’s Ceramic Sculptures Animate the Elements

    JiSook Jung has long been drawn to clay for its inherent malleability. “Clay has the advantage of being able to quickly mold an image in my head into a visual form because it is soft and plastic,” the Seoul-based artist tells Colossal. “In that sense, I think clay is an intuitive and instinctive material.”

    Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member now, and support independent arts publishing.

    Hide advertising

    Save your favorite articles

    Get 15% off in the Colossal Shop

    Receive members-only newsletter

    Give 1% for art supplies in K-12 classrooms

    Join us today!

    $7/month

    $75/year

    Explore membership options

    Previous articleNext article More

  • in

    Colossal’s Favorite Art Books of 2024

    Colossal’s Favorite Art Books of 2024

    December 4, 2024

    ArtBooksPhotography

    Colossal

    Share

    Pin

    Email

    Bookmark

    As we get ready to say goodbye to 2024, we’re celebrating some of our favorite books shared on Colossal throughout the year. We published dozens of articles about spectacular new monographs, photography, architecture, painting, science, history, and more. Peruse our top 10 below, and find many more in the Colossal Shop and on Bookshop.

    Shirin Neshat, “Land of Dreams” (2019), film still. © Shirin Neshat, courtesy of the artist, Gladstone Gallery, and Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, Cape Town, and London

    The Women Who Changed Photography: And How to Master Their Techniques

    From bold black-and-white visages to masters of disguise, identity plays a vital role in many of the practices featured in The Women Who Changed Photography. The tome investigates the trailblazing practices of Lee Miller, Shirin Neshat, and many more, chronicling the individuals, aesthetics, and approaches that have shaped the field.

    Available in the Colossal Shop

    Detail of Astrolin Color Card, Établissement Georget Fils Peintures Laquées et Vernis, Chantenay-Lès-Nantes (c. 1906). Image courtesy of Bibliothèque Forney, Paris

    Color Charts: A History

    From chemists’ plant-derived dyes to consumer paint swatches displayed at the hardware store, the history of color charts reflects a varied relationship between pigments, science, culture, and commerce. Anne Varichon explores the entwined evolution of this categorization through nearly 200 vibrant samples from the 15th century to modern day.

    Available in the Colossal Shop

    The Art Book for Children

    Two decades ago, Phaidon published the first volume in The Art Book for Children series, which quickly became beloved by children and parents the world over. To share its legacy with a new generation of readers, this edition pairs a selection of “best of” artists from the original series with 30 brand-new contemporary entries.

    This year was a plentiful time for children’s art books, and we also enjoyed the informative narrative, I Am an Artist.

    Available in the Colossal Shop

    Sacred Sites (Library of Esoterica)

    From ancient pyramids to subterranean labyrinths to mountaintop meccas, we have always been drawn to visiting or building sites that inspire reverence and awe. Sacred Sites celebrates how we traverse and transform the world around us through ritual and art. Compiled by Jessica Hundley, the volume surveys a remarkable array of places and artworks through more than 400 images centered around pilgrimage, performance, and devotion.

    Available in the Colossal Shop

    Beth Moon, “Heart of the Dragon” (2010), archival pigment inks on cotton paper, 32 × 48 inches. Image © Beth Moon

    Tree: Exploring the Arboreal World

    Spanning 3,500 years of art, science, culture, and history, Tree: Exploring the Arboreal World surveys the awe-inspiring beauty and romance of trees. The volume includes more than 300 illustrations ranging from ancient wall paintings and botanical illustrations to captivating photography and multimedia work by today’s leading artists.

    Available in the Colossal Shop

    Image © Ivan McClellan

    Eight Seconds: Black Rodeo Culture

    Eight Seconds comprises 118 images by Ivan McClellan, a Portland, Oregon-based photographer who’s spent nearly a decade documenting the lives, wins, and losses of the Black rodeo community from Alabama to Los Angeles. He offers an insider’s view, capturing the addictive energy of the sport and the rich sense of camaraderie it fosters.

    Available on Bookshop

    Camo

    Camo is the first publication to chronicle the work of Thandiwe Muriu, celebrating her vibrant portraits that combine cultural textiles and beauty ideologies. Muriu takes us on a colorful, reflective journey through her world as a woman living in modern Kenya as she reinterprets contemporary African portraiture.

    Available in the Colossal Shop

    Cover of ‘Hidden Portraits: Old Masters Reimagined,’ featuring “Hidden Jacometto” (2019), from “Portrait of a Young Man” (1480s) by Jacometto Veneziano

    Hidden Portraits: Old Masters Reimagined

    This monograph gathers a quintessential selection of Volker Hermes’s works into one volume. Highlighting the artist’s wry commentary on luxury, social status, and fame, the selection delves into the history of portraiture through a humorous lens.

    Available on Bookshop

    Great Women Sculptors

    Presenting a more expansive and inclusive history of sculpture, Great Women Sculptors surveys the work of more than 300 trailblazing artists from more than 60 countries, spanning 500 years from the Renaissance to the present day.

    Available in the Colossal Shop

    Artwork by Christina Fong

    Art Is Art: Collaborating with Neurodiverse Artists at Creativity Explored

    Spurred by the belief that art changes lives, Florence and Elias Katz founded Creativity Explored in 1983, a San Francisco-based nonprofit studio and gallery designed for disabled, neurodivergent artists. More than 135 people currently participate in its programming, learning techniques across painting, drawing, clay, textiles, and more. In Art Is Art, Ann Kappes, Creativity Explored’s director of artist partnerships, celebrates the organization’s 40th anniversary through hundreds of artworks.

    Available on Bookshop

    Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member now, and support independent arts publishing.

    Hide advertising

    Save your favorite articles

    Get 15% off in the Colossal Shop

    Receive members-only newsletter

    Give 1% for art supplies in K-12 classrooms

    Join us today!

    $7/month

    $75/year

    Explore membership options

    Next article More

  • in

    Endless Fields of Detritus Blanket Cássio Vasconcellos’s Aerial Composites

    Detail of “Air Force.” All images courtesy of Cássio Vasconcellos and Nara Roesler Gallery, shared with permission

    Endless Fields of Detritus Blanket Cássio Vasconcellos’s Aerial Composites

    November 12, 2024

    ArtClimatePhotography

    Kate Mothes

    Share

    Pin

    Email

    Bookmark

    Where do jets go when they no longer fly? What happens to shipping containers when they aren’t useful anymore for cargo? The answer is invisible to most of us, but for Cássio Vasconcellos, abandoned trains, planes, and automobiles are far from forgotten.

    For more than four decades, the São Paolo-based artist has been fascinated by the relationship between humans and the landscape. Over the years, his work has captured dramatic impressions of sprawling cities around the globe, often from the air, spurring an ongoing series called Collectives that condenses details of urban infrastructure like highways and parking lots into sprawling, all-over compositions.

    “Collective 11: Airplanes”

    Collectives 2, to which these images belong, focuses solely on the mesmerizing—and mind-boggling—quantity of scrapped vehicles and metal indefinitely parked in nondescript places. Vasconcellos draws from tens of thousands of aerial photographs he has made of junkyards, scrap heaps, airplane graveyards, and dumps to create remarkable, large-scale composite images.

    The artist has mapped all of the junkyards around São Paolo, plus numerous more near the Brazilian cities of Cubatão, Santos, and Rio de Janeiro. He has also documented desert landscapes in the U.S. that serve as final resting places for commercial airliners and military jets.

    “Over,” for example, considers numerous associated meanings, like “overview,” “all-over,” “overdose,” or “game over.” The title references not only excess but the overflow of visual information in contemporary society.

    “Seeing an image like this is to make clear that there is no ‘throw away,’” Vasconcellos says in a video about “OVER,” which took him about a year and three months to complete. “This volume of things that are in the work… they are out there,” he adds. “I just put them together.”

    Detail of “Over”

    “These photos may look like post-apocalyptic scenarios, but they could be our future,” the artist says in a statement. “We still have to learn that by throwing things away and taking them out of our sight, we don’t make themdisappear. In fact, they keep existing somewhere else, outliving us mostof the time.”

    Vasconcellos cuts out individual shipping containers, trucks, dumpsters, and piles of detritus in a meticulous and time-consuming digital process. He never repeats an element in a composition, and each piece is scaled and situated so that the shadows align with the directionality of the light. He then adds dust and dirt to the surfaces, simultaneously emphasizing the patina of time and an eerie sense of timelessness.

    Devoid of people, Vasconcellos’s images nevertheless describe the human predilection to produce, consume, and cast aside. “It’s kind of nonsense, because there are some paths, but you don’t really understand how a person or a car can get in there—or get out,” Vasconcellos says. “It is a possible world, but at the same time, an absurd one.”

    Vasconcellos is represented by Nara Roesler Gallery, and you can explore more of his work on his website and Instagram.

    “Collective 12: Boats”

    “Collective 10: Containers”

    “Air Force”

    “Collective 7: Metal Scrap”

    Detail of “Collective 7: Metal Scrap”

    “Collective 9: Scrap Dumpster”

    Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member now, and support independent arts publishing.

    Hide advertising

    Save your favorite articles

    Get 15% off in the Colossal Shop

    Receive members-only newsletter

    Give 1% for art supplies in K-12 classrooms

    Join us today!

    $7/month

    $75/year

    Explore membership options

    Previous articleNext article More

  • in

    In ‘Keep the Kid Alive,’ Arielle Bobb-Willis Reaches for Exuberance

    New Jersey (2017). All images © Arielle Bobb-Willis, shared with permission

    In ‘Keep the Kid Alive,’ Arielle Bobb-Willis Reaches for Exuberance

    November 1, 2024

    ArtBooksPhotography

    Grace Ebert

    Share

    Pin

    Email

    Bookmark

    Color, movement, and sweeping, expertly choreographed gestures permeate the works of Arielle Bobb-Willis. The Los Angeles-based photographer blurs the boundaries between art and fashion imagery, rejecting “the notion that Black expression is limited—or limiting.”

    A slim monograph collects 90 of Bobb-Willis’s photos, highlighting her distinctive eye and bold, conceptual compositions. Published by Aperture, Keep the Kid Alive positions observation and imagination as useful tools to inspire awe for the overlooked. Models dressed in bright, color-blocked garments pose in parks or alleyways, their joyful dances and chromatic clothing enriching the nondescript spaces.

    New Jersey (2017)

    Bobb-Willis first picked up a camera at 14 and through moves from New York to Aiken, South Carolina, to New Orleans, found the medium was both cathartic through chronic depression and loss and also an essential tool for developing her taste and confidence.

    “Photography is how I keep my inner child alive. Photography has taught me to fall in love with life,” she shares with Nicole Acheampong in an interview in the book, adding:

    I love finding unexpected rainbows, and sunshine and a beautiful green park and kids’ chalk drawings on the sidewalk and melted ice cream and butterflies and flowers and Black girls with bright-blue braids and sweet graffiti poetry! I keep my inner child alive by taking pictures of my every day. I’m always finding things that I’m so in love with. …Photography is, and will always be, a daily practice of falling in love with as many things as I can.

    Whether captured in a Los Angeles parking lot or against a purple wall in New Jersey, Bobb-Willis’s images are dynamic and vivid, drawing beauty and exuberance from unassuming spaces.

    Keep the Kid Alive is available on Bookshop, and you can find more from Bobb-Willis on her website and Instagram.

    New Orleans (2021)

    Los Angeles (2020)

    Williamsburg (2016)

    New Jersey (2018)

    New Orleans (2017)

    New Jersey (2019)

    New Jersey (2022)

    New Orleans (2016)

    Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member now, and support independent arts publishing.

    Hide advertising

    Save your favorite articles

    Get 15% off in the Colossal Shop

    Receive members-only newsletter

    Give 1% for art supplies in K-12 classrooms

    Join us today!

    $7/month

    $75/year

    Explore membership options

    Next article More