still life

Subterms

    Latest story

    138 Shares24 Views

    Flowers Entwine Porcelain Animals and Objects in Lizzie Gill’s Surreal Tablescapes

    by

    “Pair of Covered Vases” (2024), acrylic, image transfer and marble dust emulsion on canvas, 56 x 62 inches. All photos by Jenny Gorman, courtesy of Hesse Flatow, shared with permission

    Flowers Entwine Porcelain Animals and Objects in Lizzie Gill’s Surreal Tablescapes

    March 31, 2025

    Art

    Grace Ebert

    Share

    Pin

    Email

    Bookmark

    “To have something be uncanny, you must first introduce the familiar,” says Lizzie Gill. Likening her compositions to a dining table’s place settings, the artist paints elaborate still lifes that explore the matriarchal lineages and how objects passed down shift in meaning over time.

    The vivid works feature flat backdrops met by boldly striped or floral linens and a menagerie of animals seized by fresh blooms. A marble and dust emulsion, which Gill layers on the acrylic-painted panel with a baker’s piping tool, adds a life-like texture to the petals. She also utilizes an image-transfer process to translate various pieces from her mother’s porcelain collection, further enmeshing her works in domestic traditions.

    “Wedgwood (Nightlines) II” (2025), acrylic, image transfer and marble dust emulsion on panel, 30 x 24 inches

    The still life, Gill says, is her preferred platform for exploring the tenets of Surrealism and what it means to be a steward. In “Lunar Still Life (Avec L’hippopotame),” for example, long stems coil around an animated porcelain seal and hippo rendered in delicate blue and white. “Still Life With Four Cerulean Vessels” is similarly lively as a miniature fox with a vine wrapped around its torso wanders across the tablescape.

    Decorating the vases are unlikely scenes depicting volcanic eruptions, rocket launches, and even a menacing twister ripping across the terrain. Embellishing antique forms with contemporary imagery, the works juxtapose the calm propriety associated with domestic spaces and world-changing, explosive actions generated by both humans and nature.

    Based in Sharon, Connecticut, Gill is currently researching historic textiles for upcoming works, and those shown here are on view in her solo exhibition Paraphernalia through April 26 at Hesse Flatow. Follow the latest on Instagram.

    “Lunar Still Life (Avec L’hippopotame)” (2025), acrylic, image transfer and marble dust emulsion on panel, 30 x 40 inches

    Detail of “Wedgwood (Nightlines) II” (2025), acrylic, image transfer and marble dust emulsion on panel, 30 x 24 inches

    “Still Life With Four Cerulean Vessels” (2025), acrylic, image transfer and marble dust emulsion on canvas, 48 x 40 inches

    “Tea For Two (Avec Le Caniche)” (2025), acrylic, image transfer and marble dust emulsion on canvas, 40 x 48 inches

    “Wedgwood (Nightlines) III” (2025), acrylic, image transfer and marble dust emulsion on panel, 30 x 24 inches

    “Lunar Still Life (Avec le Elephant)” (2025), acrylic, image transfer and marble dust emulsion on canvas, 60 x 80 inches

    “Wedgwood (Nightlines)” (2025), acrylic, image transfer and marble dust emulsion on panel, 30 x 24 inches

    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

    More stories

    • 113 Shares52 Views

      in Art

      Krzysztof Grzybacz’s ‘Floral Compositions’ Are Tender Portrayals of Togetherness

      by

      “Yellow, White, Orange, Pink, Blue, Yellow, White” (2025), diptych, oil on canvas, 200 × 320 centimeters. Photos by Bartosz Zalewski. All images courtesy of Krzysztof Grzybacz and Galeria Dawid Radziszewski, Vienna, shared with permission

      Krzysztof Grzybacz’s ‘Floral Compositions’ Are Tender Portrayals of Togetherness

      March 27, 2025

      Art

      Kate Mothes

      Share

      Pin

      Email

      Bookmark

      Arranged by size and hue, the blooms in Krzysztof Grzybacz’s large-scale oil paintings appear in comfortable togetherness, each individual’s features amplified by its placement next to those that differ. His Floral Compositions series organizes the flowers against swaths of green fabric, exploring their potent symbolism.

      Grzybacz taps into the age-old tradition of flowers in oil, rendering their petals and stems in vibrant hues that capture their unique outlines and textures. Rooted in still life, his compositions are underpinned by abstraction and the artist’s fascination with layering and perspective.

      “Yellow” (2025), oil on canvas, 200 × 160 centimeters

      The works in Grzybacz’s current solo exhibition at Galeria Dawid Radziszewski also reference the queer community. “Flowers are like people: they pose, search for their own space, and mark out boundaries,” says a statement from the gallery. The artist nods to the role of order and systems, while also emphasizing the importance of celebrating diversity.

      Grouped together in front of textile folds, oblique grids, or distorted human features, the artist invokes the power of alliances through a sense of tenderness, curiosity, and pliability.

      Floral Compositions continues through March 29 in Vienna. Find more on Grzybacz’s website and Instagram.

      “Blue, yellow, orange, white, pink” (2025), oil on canvas, 100 × 80 centimeters

      “Orange, blue, pink, yellow, white, maroon, purple” (2025), oil on canvas, 200 × 160 centimeters

      “White, Yellow, Orange, Blue, Purple” (2025), oil on canvas, 200 × 160 centimeters

      “Blue, White, Yellow, Orange, Pink” (2025), oil on canvas, 100 × 80 centimeters

      “White, maroon, orange, yellow, blue” (2025), oil on canvas, 70 × 60 centimeters

      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

    • 175 Shares117 Views

      in Art

      Porcelain Vessels Are Portals Through Time and Space in Paintings by Sun Hwa Kim

      by

      “Still Life with Jars” (2025), acrylic and flashe on canvas, 60 x 84 inches. All images courtesy of the artist and Harper’s, New York

      Porcelain Vessels Are Portals Through Time and Space in Paintings by Sun Hwa Kim

      March 17, 2025

      Art

      Kate Mothes

      Share

      Pin

      Email

      Bookmark

      In the late 17th century, during Korea’s Joseon Dynasty, a particularly rotund, plain white porcelain vessel rose to popularity. Nicknamed “moon jars” for their milky glaze and spherical form, the earliest examples were finished in wood-fired kilns to add character to their minimalist surfaces. Treasured and reproduced by skilled artisans throughout the centuries, the classic style continues to influence contemporary artisans.

      For Brooklyn-based artist Sung Hwa Kim, the traditional Korean jar serves as a starting point for an ongoing series of paintings invoking decorative vessels as metaphorical containers for the past. In the context of the still-life, he conjures what he refers to as “visual haikus,” poetic evocations of the passing of time, like changing seasons and the transition from day into night.

      “Still Life with Jar, Ashtray, and Vincent van Gogh Painting” (2024), acrylic and flashe on canvas, 72 x 60 inches

      In Kim’s current solo exhibition, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring at Harper’s, the artist emphasizes quiet, everyday moments in domestic settings that often overlook brick buildings or the iconic Brooklyn Bridge. Some of his compositions are vibrantly monochrome, setting the scene for a vase on top of a table, containing a scene from a historic painting or faraway landscape.

      Kim often incorporates spectral, glowing insects (previously) and situates the vessels on sills or near windows. Vases contain landscapes, trees, and animals, while decor on the walls reference works by famous modernists like Vincent van Gogh, René Magritte, and Sanyu.

      Inside the pots, the flora appears ghost-like or faded, rendered in fuzzy gray marks, and objects left nearby, like a pencil and notebook or a drinking glass, suggest that someone was recently present but an unspecified time has passed since they left. The jars serve as portals to other times and places just as the windows provide views of another world. “Ultimately, Kim masterfully inhabits the role of guide, making perceptible the delicate threshold between what fades and what endures,” says a gallery statement.

      Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring continues in New York through April 5. See more on the artist’s website and Instagram.

      “Still Life with Jar, Fruits, and Incense Burner” (2025), acrylic and flashe on canvas, 72 x 60 inches

      “Still Life with Jar and Round Glass Top Table” (2025), acrylic and flashe on canvas, 50 x 40 inches

      “Still Life with Jar, Moon Lamp, and René Magritte Postcard” (2024), acrylic and flashe on canvas, 72 x 60 inches

      “Still Life with Jar, Pencil, and Notebook” (2025), acrylic and flashe on canvas, 60 x 48 inches

      “Still Life with Jar” (2024), acrylic and flashe on canvas, 50 x 40 inches

      “Still Life with Jar and Sanyu Painting” (2025), acrylic and flashe on canvas, 60 x 48 inches

      “Still Life with Jars” (2025), acrylic and flashe on canvas, 60 x 48 inches

      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

    • 188 Shares152 Views

      in Art

      Lauded Dutch Golden Age Painter Rachel Ruysch Gets Her First Major Survey in the U.S.

      by

      “Flowers in a Glass Vase” (1704), oil on canvas, 33 × 26 3/8 inches. Image courtesy of Detroit Institute of Arts. All images shared with permission

      Lauded Dutch Golden Age Painter Rachel Ruysch Gets Her First Major Survey in the U.S.

      March 11, 2025

      Art

      Kate Mothes

      Share

      Pin

      Email

      Bookmark

      Many of us are familiar with titans of the Dutch Golden Age like Frans Hals, Johannes Vermeer, Rembrandt, Jan Steen, and more. Yet fewer of us have probably heard of Rachel Ruysch (1664-1750), renowned during her lifetime for her original style but under-acknowledged through the centuries in the canon of Western art history.

      Co-organized by the Toledo Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Alte Pinakothek, Munich, the first major U.S. exhibition of the artist’s work, Rachel Ruysch: Nature into Art, introduces audiences to the breadth of her remarkable paintings.

      “Posy of Flowers, with a Beetle, on a Stone Ledge” (1741), oil on canvas, 7 7/8 × 9 5/8 inches. Image courtesy of Kunstmuseum Basel

      During her seven-decade career, Ruysch was the first woman admitted to the Confrerie Pictura, The Hague painters’ society, and she was appointed court painter in Düsseldorf to Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine. She rose to become one of the highest-paid artists of her day. In a foreword for the exhibition catalog, the directors explain that “Ruysch achieved fame across Europe in her lifetime, but her oeuvre was little studied by art historians in subsequent centuries. She has never been the subject of a major exhibition—until now.”

      Art historians consider Ruysch to be among the most talented still life artists of the era, and by the time she died at 86, she had produced hundreds of paintings. Nature into Art includes more than 90 international loans, including 48 of her most significant works.

      The artist was born in The Hague, The Netherlands, to parents with backgrounds in science and design. Her father was a professor of botany and anatomy, and her mother was the daughter of an architect. The artist began painting when she was around 15, copying flower and insect specimens from her father’s collection.

      As her artistic faculty grew, Ruysch taught her father and her sister Anna how to paint. She merged modern scientific observation with an incredible aptitude for capturing light, composition, and form, and she typically dated her paintings when she signed them, giving art historians a clear record of stylistic shifts and subject matter over time.

      “Flowers and Fruit in a Forest” (1714), oil on canvas, 38 × 48 1/2 inches. Image courtesy of Städtische Kunstsammlungen & Museen Augsburg

      Ruysch’s success during her lifetime is attributed to both her unmistakable talent and the 17th-century Dutch fondness for flowers and gardening. Still life paintings of floral arrangements and tables heaping with food highlighted the beauty of nature and the gifts of plenty. The vanitas genre also sprung from the style, interpreting memento mori, Latin for “remember you must die,” into subtle, well-versed visual cues.

      Motifs like skulls, insects, rotting fruit, or wilting flowers were symbolic reminders of the futility of pleasure, power, or wealth after death. For example, in Ruysch’s “Posy of Flowers, with a Beetle, on a Stone Ledge,” beetles and flies crawl over a spray of peonies and wildflowers that will soon wilt, and water droplets signify purity and the fleetingness of life.

      Nature into Art runs from April 12 to July 17 in Toledo, traveling on to Boston afterward, where it opens on August 23.

      “Flowers” (1715), oil on canvas, 29 2/3 × 23 3/4 inches. Photo by Photo: Nicole Wilhelms, courtesy of Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen—Alte Pinakothek Munich

      Illustration from ‘Observations of a Surinam Toad,’ graphite on paper, 8 x 11 in. Image © The Royal Society, London

      Anna Ruysch (Dutch, active from 1685, died after 1741), “A Still Life of Flowers on a Marble Table Ledge” (1685), oil on canvas, 13 × 11 3/4 inches. Photo by Erin Croxton, courtesy of a private collection and Birmingham Museum of Art

      “Flower Still Life” (about 1716-20), oil on canvas, 29 3/4 × 23 7/8 inches. Image courtesy of Toledo Museum of Art

      Rachel Ruysch and Michiel van Musscher (Dutch, 1645–1705), “Rachel Ruysch (1664–1750)” (1692), oil on canvas, 30 × 25 inches. Image courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

      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

    • 138 Shares179 Views

      in Art

      Bees and Irridescent Bubbles Infiltrate Still-Life Traditions in Marc Dennis’ Paintings

      by

      Detail of “Happily Ever After” (2024), oil on linen, 70.5 x 57.25 inches. All images courtesy of Harper’s, New York, shared with permisison

      Bees and Irridescent Bubbles Infiltrate Still-Life Traditions in Marc Dennis’ Paintings

      February 7, 2025

      Art

      Grace Ebert

      Share

      Pin

      Email

      Bookmark

      During the Dutch Golden Age, vanitas grew in popularity as a genre of memento mori that emphasized life’s transience. The opulent paintings were steeped in symbolism and foregrounded the futility of ambition and worldly pleasures.

      Marc Dennis draws on this 17th-century tradition as he refashions the still life for a contemporary audience. In a recent oil painting, “Happily Ever After,” hordes of honeybees and hornets descend on a lush bouquet. Kaleidoscopic bubbles float across the five-foot canvas, reflecting the surrounding colors and distorting clear viewers of nearby flowers and fruit.

      “Happily Ever After” (2024), oil on linen, 70.5 x 57.25 inches

      The insects and glossy orbs add another layer of impermanence to the already fleeting imagery, while also reflecting on the tenuous relationship between the organic and human-made. Similar tensions appear in “Allegory of the Readymade,” which suffocates and warps a seemingly vibrant painting with thick layers of plastic wrap. Each of the works clings to a brief moment in time, capturing both life at its prime and serving as a bold reminder of its inevitable end.

      Dennis’ paintings are on view in I’m Happy You’re Here through March 1 at Harper’s Gallery in New York. Find more from the artist on Instagram.

      “Based on a True Story” (2024), oil on linen, 70.75 x 55 inches

      Detail of “Based on a True Story” (2024), oil on linen, 70.75 x 55 inches

      “Superstar” (2024), oil on linen, 70.5 x 55 inches

      “Portrait of the Artist as a Juvenile Delinquent” (2024), oil on linen, 72 x 58 inches

      “Allegory of the Readymade” (2024), oil on linen, 48.75 x 37 inches

      “Giotto’s Fly” (2024), oil on linen, 72.5 x 96 inches

      “Dracula” (2024), oil on linen, 71.5 x 56 in

      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

    • 188 Shares199 Views

      in Art

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

      by

      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

    • 125 Shares129 Views

      in Art

      Psychedelic Distortions and Glitches Streak Across Alexis Mata’s Bold Paintings

      by

      All images courtesy of Alexis Mata and The Hole, shared with permission

      Psychedelic Distortions and Glitches Streak Across Alexis Mata’s Bold Paintings

      December 20, 2024

      Art

      Grace Ebert

      Share

      Pin

      Email

      Bookmark

      From digital glitches to mind-bending distortions, Mexico City-based artist Alexis Mata is interested in how visual information gets lost or skewed as it shifts from one context to another. In his oil paintings, bouquets and vast desert landscapes spread across the canvas as if melting or stretching into unrecognizable forms. “When your eyes look too long at the same thing, your mind makes the change,” he shares.

      Mata excavates the relationship between analog and digital realms, and his process incorporates both modes of artmaking. Preliminary sketches fill notebooks that travel everywhere the artist does, while he continually snaps photos and records video as references.

      AI experiments help Mata better translate the strange, disorienting outcomes that these rapidly evolving tools can produce. But his research isn’t just visual. “I enjoy experimenting by writing poems or haikus in AI and seeing what emerges. It’s an exploratory process,” he notes.

      Rendered in bold color palettes, the trippy paintings draw connections between digital mishaps and the ways our brains warp an image, whether in moments of intense focus, dream states, or with the help of hallucinatory substances. “I like to think that entire worlds are created within dreams, and these worlds ask to be brought into the light,” he says.

      Many of the paintings shown here are on view in Fata Morgana through January 25 at The Hole in Tribeca. Explore more of Mata’s work, which spans stained glass and textiles to drawing and sculpture, on his website and Instagram.

      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