Stockholm-based ceramicist Caroline Harrius (previously) embroiders vases with floral patterns that explore the relationships between gender and craft and decoration and purpose. Distorting perceptions, the delicate pieces appear as though Harrius wrapped stitched fibers around a glazed vessel, or in a parallel manner, sculpted fabric to mimic a curved form.
Harrius punctures the shiny, semi-functional vases with holes and then pulls through threads to produce patterns and floral motifs that explore gender norms and hierarchies in craft history, specifically focusing on those typically associated with women. Her works reevaluate artistic techniques as she takes both pottery and embroidery out of their traditional contexts, combines, and then reimagines them, stretching the boundary of each craft. This results in unexpected pieces that prompt viewers to question perception and textures (i.e. whether a ceramic could “feel” soft and fibrous like fabric or whether a needle and thread are robust enough to puncture through clay.)
To view more of Harrius’s stitched vessels, visit her site and Instagram.
Fluffy 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.
We spent the last year collaborating with creatives from every corner of the planet to publish nearly 700 articles and interviews that range from art, design, and photography to science and history. As we plan our coverage for 2022, we’re looking back at some of the stories you read most (thank you!). And in case you missed it, make sure you check out Colossal’s favorite short films and books from 2021, too.
Between November 2020 and March 2021, Jörg Gläscher gathered deadwood and constructed nine massive crests that overwhelm the forest floor in undulating layers of branches and twigs.
Enormous tarantulas, eagles, and dinosaur-like creatures occupy Japan’s Niigata Prefecture as part of the Wara Art Festival, a summertime event that displays massive animals and mythical creations fashioned from the rice crop’s leftover straw.
Photographer Jeremy Snell unveils the more sinister side of Ghana’s Lake Volta through an intimate and profound series documenting the lives of the children working in the region.
During the winter months of late 2020 into early 2021, Carla Rhodes photographed a diverse cast of cold-weather adventurers, including a brilliant northern cardinal, numerous pairs of mourning doves, and furry little field mice, that visited her birdfeeder.
Russian artist Anastasia Trusova works in a style she terms “textured graphic impressionism” that involves deftly layering acrylic paints into lush foliage, clouds, and fields of wildflowers.
2021 changed the way we understand a 17th-century painting by the Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer. What was once thought to be a somewhat glum depiction of a young girl was revealed to be an amorous portrayal complete with a naked Cupid in the background.
The women artist Gerard Mas sculpts are spirited and unconventional as they blow a wad of bubblegum, sport visible tan lines, or unabashedly dig in their noses. Each corset-clad figure is steeped in humor and wit as it casts a contemporary light on the traditional form.
Sixty migrating elephants passed between Piccadilly and Buckingham Palace in London’s Green Park earlier this year as one of nine herds roaming throughout the city. The lumbering creatures are part of a collaboration that explores how humans can better live alongside animals.
As part of a closing hand-off ceremony for the 2020 Tokyo Paralympic Games, choreographer Sadeck Waff worked with 128 performers in a dizzying performance focused on arms and hands.
Nia DaCosta’s Candyman is deeply rooted in Chicago’s history and draws in local artists, like the talented team at Manual Cinema. Colossal editor-in-chief Christopher Jobson interviewed co-artistic director Drew Dir when the film was released to discuss the unprecedented process of using shadow puppets in a blockbuster live-action film, experimenting with the technical limits of the medium, and conveying a story of racism and trauma.
In Rafael Silveira’s Unportraits, magenta curls and slick, turquoise coifs frame the bizarre scenarios unfolding in a subject’s mind. The Brazilian artist, who gravitates towards oil paints in shades of pink and blue, translates a character’s psyche through wilting flowers, gashes in the earth’s surface, and parrots with feathers that drip like wet paint. Anatomical elements like singular eyes, hearts sprouting veins, and twisting brain matter bolster the unearthly qualities of each work, which meld flora and fauna into a surreal mishmash. “From inside, we are a strange mix of dreams, thoughts, feelings, and human meat,” Silveira tells Colossal. “I think these portraits are not persons but moods.”
Peculiar situations surround the subjects as their sweaters melt like ice cream and spiders spin webs from the parched ground supplanting their necks, a visual that evokes thick wrinkles associated with aging. These fleeting actions are part of the artist’s reference to paper ephemera and the ways thoughts and feelings decompose over time. “This rich mental energy is like an invisible raw element, part of the immaterial alchemy of my works,” he says. “We can’t control what life brings us, but we can decide how to react. We make these small decisions all the time. These characters evoke the power of reaction.”
Silveira is based in Curitiba, Brazil, and has his work slated for a January group exhibition at London’s Dorothy Circus Gallery and in March in an immersive solo show at Farol Santander in São Paulo. Until then, pick up a print and keep an eye on his Instagram for new additions to his portrait series.
A follow-up to the massive, six-pointed star that pierced a concrete building back in 2015, a new site-specific work by Malaysian artist Jun Ong bores through a former warehouse in Kuala Lumpur. “STAR/KL” is an illuminated installation comprised of 111 LED beams in various sizes that burst outward in the open-air structure, impaling the chainlink fence, support columns, and facade of the Air Building at The Godown art center. Described as an “extraterrestrial light being,” the glowing public work performs a hypnotic dance of flashes and flickers each night with an accompanying sound component by Reza Othman, who’s part of the experimental electronic and jazz project RAO.
“STAR/KL” is up through March 26, 2022, although its light will fade gradually during the next few months until it extinguishes entirely. You can see more of the otherworldly piece and dive into Ong’s process on Instagram. You also might enjoy this radiant intervention by Ian Strange. (via designboom)
Illustrator Phoebe Wahl and animator Andrea Love teamed up to gift us with a delightful stop-motion short full of cozy felted sweaters, wooly swirls of steam puffing from teacups, and (too much) snow just in time for the holidays. The whimsical animation is the music video for “Merry Christmas, Happy New Year,” a duet between Ingrid Michaelson and Zooey Deschanel, that tells the sweet story of Bunny, Rabbit, and their needle-felted friends as they prepare for the holidays. Watch the heartfelt film above, and go behind-the-scenes with Wahl and Love, who also collaborated on an adaptation of Hans Christian Anderson’s Thumbelina, on Hello Hornet. (via The Kids Should See This)
Part functional walkway and part dramatic sculpture, an outdoor staircase by Alex Chinneck unfurls into individual metallic ribbons as it climbs a brick building in Brighton. The latest work by the British artist, titled “A Spring in Your Step,” is made of galvanized steel and features a base with slatted rungs that gradually unwind into a trio of strips splaying outward over Circus Square.
Chinneck is known for his surreal architectural interventions—these include melting facades, a condemned building that unzips, and twisting red post boxes—that upend ubiquitous designs in favor of bizarre counterparts. He shares about the new piece: “’A Spring in Your Step’ took three years to complete, weighs four tonnes, is 25 meters tall, and follows a non-repeating, expanding, and contracting helical form, making it my most complex sculpture to date.”
Head to the artist’s Instagram to see the three-year process behind the spectacular sculpture and to explore a larger collection of his works.
Ghanaian artist Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe has a proclivity for contrast. In his striking portraits of Black people, he gravitates toward shades of gray to render the skin tone of single figures or small groups, who sport patterned garments, hats of textured fabrics, and generally vibrant fashions that are in direct opposition to their physical features. The bright, bold color palette is the artist’s preferred method for translating emotional states, inner lives, and idiosyncrasies, one he emulates with the richly textured impasto backdrops surrounding his subjects.
Quaicoe is currently a resident at Rubell Museum, where he’s created a trio of monumental works that consider the trope of the American cowboy. “Rainyanni,” “Moses Adomah” and “David Theodore” stand 12 feet high and are reminiscent of the bandana-wearing figures the artist painted earlier this year. Similarly subversive is “The American Dreamer” (shown below), which centers on a younger figure—the subject’s skin is covered in a swirling pattern of lines, a recurring trait in some of the artist’s most recent pieces—who wears a hat printed with stars and strips.
A few of Quaicoe’s portraits are on view through January 27, 2022, at Green Family Art Foundation in Dallas and at LACMA through April 17, 2022, and you can explore more of his oil-based works on Artsy and Instagram.
“Rainyanni (Cowgirl)” (2021), oil on canvas,144 x 108 inches
“Dapper III” (2020), oil on canvas, 84 x 54 inches. Photo by Alan Shaffer
“The American Dreamer” (2021), oil on canvas, 40 x 30 inches. Photo by Alan Shaffer
“Blue Turtle Neck” (2021), oil on canvas, 60 x 40 inches. Courtesy of the aritst and Almine Rech
“Allure” (2020), oil on canvas, 40 x 30 inches. Photo by Alan Shaffer
“Moses Adomah” (2021), oil on canvas, 144 x 108 inches
“Shelcy and Christy” (2020), oil on canvas, 48 x 36 inches. Photo by Alan Shaffer
In the sleek decanters designed by artist Charlie Matz, wine and other spirits trickle through a crab’s claws, a shark’s open jaws, and the belly of a branzino. The playful aeration vessels are handmade with borosilicate glass and position marine life at the necks of the carafe, ensuring that the creatures flush with reds and pinks with every pour. Matz, who works at the Chicago-based Ignite Glass, has a few of the decanters available in the studio’s shop, and you can follow his functional creations and new releases on Instagram.
Back in 2009, Dutch wildlife photographer Roeselien Raimond snapped a portrait of a fox that always seemed to be squinting her eyes in contemplation. That first image sparked a fascination with the creatures and their idiosyncratic expressions, an interest that’s culminated in a decades-long project and now montage documenting the fantastically diverse animals. “Foxes’ characters may differ as much as human characters,” she writes. “Shy and arrogant, from wallflower to cocky, chronically happy or notoriously sad. Helpful or headstrong. Mischievous and cute. Name it, and you’ll have a fox version of it.”
Raimond photographed all 64 foxes from the same angle to allow for easy comparisons, and the result reveals a wildly varied display of characteristics: there are differences in fur color and pattern, face shape, eyes, snout length, and the way their fur trims their ears. Even their expressions aren’t alike, and some appear to bask in the sunlight while others intently focus on an object in front of them.
Atelier Hatena’s bread bugs are the only critters we’d gladly snuggle up with at night. The whimsical, fiber-rich characters are part of the Hiroshima-based artist’s growing troupe of felt creatures: there are four-legged rolls, tiny insects sprouting mushrooms, and pastries with eyes poking from their crusts. Atelier Hatena’s shop is currently stocked with the adorable critters, although they sell out quickly, so keep an eye on Twitter for updates. (via Spoon & Tamago)
