Cosmic Creatures Meet Mystical Geometry in Bunnie Reiss’ Murals and Illustrations

All images © Bunnie Reiss, shared with permission

For Bunnie Reiss, the studio can take her anywhere. From her art-filled desert home near Joshua Tree, California, to walls in cities around the country, her surroundings transform into her canvas. “I want to be the sort of artist that gives people something to look at for free and make it accessible,” she tells Colossal. From murals to paintings to moving sculptures, she takes a prolific approach, constantly experimenting with different media.

Reiss is known for her colorful, cosmic characters with an emphasis on patterns and a symbiosis between wild animals, botanicals, and people. An ongoing series of hand-painted leather gloves features embellished eye motifs, symmetry, and sacred geometry. Spreading feelings of positivity and creativity out into the world is central to Reiss’ approach, especially through the medium of public art. “When you put your energy into one thing, it’ll work,” she says. “You have to trust that we are electrical beings, and if you’re dumping all of your energy into something, it will work.”

Pushing her skills into new territory, Reiss recently completed a 500-square-foot mosaic mural and a sculpture of a giant rabbit leaping over a rooftop, constructed on the chassis of a truck. “I kept thinking of this constellation called Lepus,” Reiss says of the piece titled “The Sky Rabbit’s House,” which she completed in collaboration with a team of fabricators. “It’s a winter constellation, and I can see it from my porch. It’s a moving sculpture on a street-legal car—I love cars, so that was really important to me—and it was made for people to fall in love. There’s a cavity for people to sit in, and it’s a place for connectivity.”

Reiss is currently working on illustrations for a children’s book and organizing a monograph, highlighting work she has made over the past ten years. You can explore much more of the artist’s work on her website, and follow updates on Instagram.

 

“Magic Buffalo,” Buffalo, New York. Image courtesy of Albright-Knox Museum Public Arts Initiative, Buffalo, New York

“The Sky Rabbit’s House.” Photo by Duncan Rawlinson

Carbondale, Colorado. Image courtesy of Carbondale Public Arts Program, Carbondale, Colorado

El Segundo, California. Commissioned by the El Segundo Arts Council

 

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Paint Whirls Through a Sea of Color and the Melodies of Chopin in a New Video by Thomas Blanchard

A vivacious troupe of colorful paint blobs dance across a stage of oil and soap liquid in Thomas Blanchard’s latest video. Sliding around to the sounds of Chopin’s “Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2 (E Flat Major),” glittering spheres roll mesmerizingly across shimmering fields of color, which Blanchard (previously) captures in high-definition, slow-motion elegance.

Watch “Colorful Liquids in Motion” above, and find more on the artist’s website and Vimeo.

 

All images © Thomas Blanchard

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Kinetic Botanical Sculptures by William Darrell Wriggle and Writhe in Hypnotic Motion

“Ostara.” All images © William Darrell, shared with permission

William Darrell describes his kinetic sculptures as “mechanically abstracted organisms,” animated forms that pulse, shimmy, and spin with lifelike motion. The London-based artist is inspired by the relationship between the organic and the mechanical along with the enticing, mesmerizing qualities of movement that can coax “fear or fascination” from the viewer. “There are cuttlefish that hypnotise their prey in order to catch them,” he says. “As an artist, I follow a similar method.”

Darrell 3D-prints each work to achieve the necessary level of precision. Every component needs to align perfectly to create such methodical, entrancing motions, powered by a single motor and a mix of gears, belts, magnets, cams, and elastic bands. Darrell shares:

I engage in kinaesthetic play with my prototypes, discovering new ways they can revolve and move together. I’m a self-taught engineer, and I always try to do something new that I haven’t seen before. Steadily, they get more complex over time, and sometimes something completely unexpected jumps out at me, bringing on a new wave of development.

The result is a diverse collection of sculptures that meld the form of botanicals with restless animal movements. Reactions “(vary) from viewer to viewer. For some, it’s a purely pleasurable experience, for others too stimulating and even perverse,” he shares.

Watch more of Darrell’s uncanny mechanics on Instagram.

 

“Optimism Bloom”

“Oneiros”

Detail of “Optimism Bloom”

“The Institute of Sex and Consumption”

“Ostara”

“Oneiros”

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An Elegant ‘Bamboo Cloud’ Floats Over Manhattan’s Gansevoort Plaza

Photo by Jennifer Trahan. All images © llLab. Architects

Earlier this month, a couple of airy clouds floated over Gansevoort Plaza in Manhattan, although unlike those you’d usually see wafting overhead, these clouds descended a bit closer to Earth. NYCxDESIGN invited Shanghai-based architecture studio llLab. to design a pavilion as part of New York City’s annual architecture festival, Archtober.

llLab. combined form and function in “Bamboo Cloud,” a sculptural oasis in the busy square, highlighting the elegance, strength, and flexibility of the material. The frame, nearly invisible beneath the woven exterior, holds the organic forms aloft above the pavement, “providing a place for spontaneous encounters and gatherings.”

llLab. has worked extensively with bamboo in many of their projects, which you can explore in-depth on the studio’s website and Instagram.

 

Photo by Jennifer Trahan

Photo by Xi Chen and Chris King

Photo by Xi Chen and Chris King

Photo by Xi Chen and Chris King

Photo by Xi Chen and Chris King

Photo by Jennifer Trahan

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Folkloric Figures Emerge in Malene Hartmann Rasmussen’s Shapeshifting Ceramics

“Viper Weave #8” (2023). Photos by Sylvain Deleu. All images © Malene Hartmann Rasmussen, shared with permission

“Folklore relating to Scandinavia is a great inspiration and something I have grown up with during my childhood and adolescence in my native Denmark,” says Malene Hartmann Rasmussen, whose enigmatic ceramics draw from personal memories, nostalgia, and ancient customs. “Harvest rituals such as the tradition of making corn dollies, at Christmas-time when you have to make sure the gnomes are happy and well-fed, the Lucia processions we did every year in school, Jule-bukken—the yule-goat—that was the more sinister predecessor of Santa Claus, and trolls of all sorts are all things I remember from my childhood.”

Rasmussen’s sculptures often shapeshift, at first glance appearing like a cluster of foliage, pinecones, or berries and on closer inspection revealing a troll’s bearded face. In “Treasure,” a basket brimming with colorful gems turns out to be woven of snakes, similar to the writhing “Viper Weave #8,” in which 20 squirming reptiles comprise the warp and weft. Other works depict creatures we associate with darkness or omens, such as spiders, with additional jewel-like embellishments and cheerful, pastel colors.

 

“Spiders” (2021)

In “The Tired Lioness,” Rasmussen pulls inspiration from a precious family album, particularly a page where her mother captioned one image, “The tired mom.” The artist says the people photographed “look a bit off. So I dedicated my ‘Lioness’ to my mom and all the other tired moms and dysfunctional families out there.”

Rasmussen has long been intrigued by hybrid creatures, including the human-plant comic book character Swamp Thing, and historic books and illustrations, like Swedish artist John Bauer’s In the Troll Woods, which her grandmother gave her. “I loved the book and still do and have used it as a starting point in many artworks and installations throughout the years,” she says. “I see the trolls as nature spirits relating to the idea of animism, that not only man but every plant, stone, and river has a soul and is part of something bigger.”

Find more on the artist’s website and Instagram.

 

“Troll #8” (2017)

“The Tired Lioness” (2022)

“Snake Helmet” (2020)

“Corn Dolly Crown #3” and “Corn Dolly Crown #4” (2020)

“Treasure” (2019)

“Nøkke-rosen” (2018)

“Spiders” (2021)

“Viper Weave #8” (2023)

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Ýrúrarí’s Knit and Felted Characters Are Cheeky Additions to Mended Garments

All images © Ýr Jóhannsdóttir, shared with permission

Ýr Jóhannsdóttir moves through the world with a second set of eyes—and teeth and brows. The Icelandic artist, who works as Ýrúrarí, has spent the last few years crafting an extensive cast of felted and knitted characters to accompany her throughout the day. Many of her designs take the idea of tongue-in-cheek humor literally, with balaclavas encircled with mouths and masks embellished with playful grins.

Much of Jóhannsdóttir’s practice revolves around sustainability and transforming garments and materials otherwise destined for the landfill. Her works rely on mending and using scraps to create cheeky wearables beaming with personality.

If you’re in Copenhagen, see Jóhannsdóttir’s works in a group exhibition on view through January 28 at Nordatlantens Brygge. Her Pizza Time project, which used leftovers from the wool industry to create fiber-rich pies, was also recently nominated for Iceland’s Design Awards. Follow updates on Instagram.

 

Created in collaboration with Ásgerður Heimsidóttir. Photo by Hrafnhildur Heiða Sandholt

Photo by Studio Fræ

Created in collaboration with Ásgerður Heimsidóttir. Photo by Hrafnhildur Heiða Sandholt

Created in collaboration with Ásgerður Heimsidóttir. Photo by Hrafnhildur Heiða Sandholt

Photo by Studio Fræ

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‘Ghost Rivers’ Visualizes a Mile-Long Stream Buried Deep Beneath Baltimore

Photo © Public Mechanics. All images shared with permission

How much do we really know about the land we walk on each day? For those of us in urban areas, pavement and buildings mask what were once prairies, forests, or glaciers, with any natural terrain often disguised in swaths of concrete and blacktop.

But in some cities, the remnants of the former landscape still haunt the streets. From Paris to Auckland to New York, communities are deciding to daylight the streams and rivers that were buried underground during development as a way to reduce pollution from urban runoff and prevent disastrous flooding. Baltimore alone is home to nearly 50 waterways that run for miles across the city—including the well-known Jones Falls that flows beneath I-83—and a new public art project is drawing attention to one of the bodies hidden below several central and northern neighborhoods.

 

Photo © Frank Hamilton

The creation of artist Bruce Willen of Public Mechanics, Ghost Rivers is a multi-site installation and walking tour that visualizes the path of Sumwalt Run, which travels in culverts nearly 40 feet below Remington and Charles Village. “I first stumbled across this buried stream eight or nine years ago, on an antique map of Baltimore. On this 1870s-era map, a creek and a large pond cut across several miles of central and north Baltimore, not far from where I live,” Willen tells Colossal. “I was curious about this missing stream that once ran just a few blocks from my house.”

While walking around his neighborhood a few years later, Willen could hear water run in the storm drains when he reached lower elevations, which revived his interest in the hidden streams and instigated Ghost Rivers. Ten installations currently comprise the project, which overlays a wavy blue line on the pavement to help visualize where Sumwalt Run once was. The stream is shown haphazardly cutting through the center of an intersection and across roadways, revealing an inherent incongruity with Baltimore’s grid and urban life.

 

Photo © Public Mechanics

Thanks to support from the Greater Remington Improvement Association, Willen learned there was community interest in learning about the hidden waterways as he developed the project, and so self-guided tours became an important component of Ghost Rivers—for those of us not in Baltimore, there’s also a virtual option with detailed histories, archival photos, and maps. He shares about the tours:

Walking along the hidden path of the stream and imagining lost landscapes and ecologies really changes how you perceive the urban environment. When you encounter this permanent cartographic overlay and follow it through the city streets, these visions become more real, impactful, and deeply engaging.

While not all cities boast installations to visually communicate their histories, reviving interest in these once-visible waterways tends to be part of the goal, something Ghost Rivers is particularly adept at. It reveals what’s been lost to urbanization, explains the effects of burying a body of water, and leads us down a path that envisions a more symbiotic, sustainable future.

The few remaining Ghost Rivers sites are slated for completion next year. Check out the project website for more information, and follow Willen on Instagram to keep up with his upcoming public artworks, including bus shelter seating and light installations.

 

Photo © Public Mechanics

Photo © Public Mechanics

Photo © Frank Hamilton

Photo © Public Mechanics

Photo © Side A Photography

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