Minimal Strokes Applied with a Broom Form Jose Lerma’s Tactile Portraits

All images © Jose Lerma, shared with permission

To create his thick, abstract portraits, Chicago-based artist Jose Lerma trades his brush for hefty, commercial brooms that follow the lines of preliminary sketches. “The process of these paintings is laborious. I make my own paint and fabricate my supports. The material is heavy and unwieldy,” he tells Colossal. “It is done in one shot because it dries very fast, so there is a minimal margin for mistakes.”

Lerma’s impasto works shown here have evolved from his original series of Paint Portraits, which revealed the general outline of a figure without any distinctive details. Wide swaths trace the length of the subject’s hair or neck, leaving ridges around the perimeter and a solid gob of pigment at the end of each stroke. His forward-facing portraits tend to split the figure in half by using complementary shades of the same color to mirror each side of a face.

 

With a background in social sciences, history, and law, much of Lerma’s earlier pieces revolved around translating research into absurd, childlike installations and more immersive projects. “In recent works, maybe due to returning to my home in Puerto Rico and a much more relaxed non-academic setting, I have eliminated my reliance on history and research and now concentrate on just making portraits,” he shares. “It’s an approachable, tactile, and disarming aesthetic, but the absurdity remains perhaps in the excessive materiality.”

Now, Lerma “works in reverse” and begins with a specific image that he reduces to the most minimal markings. “It’s a large work painted in the manner of a small work, and I think that has the psychological effect of making the viewer feel small, more like a child,” he says.

Living and working between Puerto Rico and Chicago, where he teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Lerma currently has paintings on view in a number of shows: he’s at Yusto/Giner in Málaga through March 24 and part of the traveling LatinXAmerican exhibition. In April, he’ll be showing with Nino Mier Gallery at Expo Chicago and in May at Galeria Diablo Rosso in Panama. Until then, see more of his works on Instagram.

 

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Majestic Photos Capture the Dwindling Population of Madagascar’s Ancient Baobab Trees

All images © Beth Moon, shared with permission

In the fall of 2018, one of Madagascar’s most sacred baobabs cleaved and crumbled. The ancient giant was estimated to be about 1,400 years old and offered food, fuel, and fiber to the region before its trunk, which spanned 90 feet around, collapsed. Known as Tsitakakoike, which means “the tree where one cannot hear the cry from the other side,” the baobab was also entwined with local lore and thought to house the ancestral spirits of nearby Masikoro people. Its loss was devastating to the community and an ominous sign of how the climate crisis is permanently damaging these centuries-old trees.

Bay Area photographer Beth Moon has been documenting the species since 2006 and traveled to the region when Tsitakakoike fell. There she captured the cracked, deteriorating emblem along with other baobabs in similar states of crisis throughout Madagascar, Senegal, and South Africa. Shot in dramatic black-and-white, the images are rich in texture and frame the baobabs’ wide, crackled trunks and branches that splay outward into massive tufted canopies.

An act of visual preservation, Moon’s photos show how the massive trees’ exposed roots sprawled across the ground, a sure sign of years-long droughts causing many to become so dehydrated they cave under their own weight. These devastating effects are common in the region, which has experienced significant water shortages and rapid reduction of the baobab population in the last few decades. Moon writes about her visit:

Astonishment and horror set in as Tsitakakoike comes into view. Half of the tree has collapsed; a portion of the sides and back of the trunk remain. Gigantic branches, larger than most trees, lay in disarray at the base of the trunk. The entire spectacle is about the size of a football field.

During her visit, Moon captured dozens of photos, which are on view now as part of an online exhibition through photo-eye Gallery and compiled in a recently released book available on Bookshop. You can see more from her travels on Instagram.

 

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Loops and Coils in Bright Gradients Grow from Claire Lindner’s Ceramic Sculptures

All images © Claire Lindner, shared with permission

Vine-like colorful coils of material overlap in Claire Lindner’s latest sculpture collection, which blurs the line between organic and human-made forms. Each piece has a vibrancy and motion designed to push the possibilities of the medium. “My ideas are guided by the evocation of the living,” she tells Colossal. “I try through movement and color to combine images of vegetation, the animal or the mineral world, the body as if everything was made of the same substance.”

Lindner plays on oppositions when designing her ceramics to “create a visual confusion that triggers our imagination.” She creates tensions between aesthetics and textures, including soft and hard, light and heavy, and attractive and repulsive.

Each piece is made from glazed stoneware, and before the artist starts working on a new sculpture, she envisions the “movements, flow, and colors” that make up its base and core. But as she works, she lets the material inform her choices. “Once in the making, I let myself be guided by the specificity of clay,” she explains. “I have to be attentive to its tensions, folds, and plasticity in order to make a form that will ‘flow’ and tell an interesting story.”

Lindner attended the Ecoles des Arts Décoratifs Strasbourg and developed an interest in clay from studying its organic and malleable characteristics. She compares her process to metamorphosis: how after time, one form changes into another. “Unlike glass, metal, wood, or 3D printing, working with clay felt like a prolongation of the body. It can be apprehended safely. It is soft and malleable,” she says. “It also has the ability in its process to keep all of the imprints of its manipulation, just like skin you can see the stretch marks, feel the tension, and play with the limits.”

In spring, Lindner will exhibit her work in a solo show at Maab Gallery in Milan and a group show at the MOCO La Panacée Museum in Montpellier. She is currently working on larger-scale pieces, which you can follow on her website or Instagram. (via Ceramics Now)

 

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Trees Burst from 100 Elementary Desks in Hugh Hayden’s Installation Addressing the Disparities of Public Education

“Brier Patch” at Madison Square Park (2022). Image courtesy of the artist and Madison Square Park Conservancy, by Yasunori Matsui

Four lawns in New York’s Madison Square Park are now sites of a sprawling and insightful public installation by artist Hugh Hayden. On view through April 24, “Brier Patch” is comprised of 100 small wraparound desks arranged in neat grids evocative of an elementary classroom. Each cedar sculpture is distinct with barren, bark-covered branches bursting from their seats or tabletops, creating a snarled explosion of limbs and twigs that’s impossible to permeate.

Similar to his thorny dining sets in material and aesthetic, the metaphorical works speak to the inequities of education and cite the inherent barriers to achievement. The installation’s name references the tangled mass of prickly vegetation, an environment that’s only hospitable to some. It also draws on the stories of the trickster Br’er Rabbit, a folklore tradition that originated in West and Southern Africa before being repackaged as Joel Chandler Harris’s Uncle Remus stories. In those tales, the rabbit outwits his foes and finds refuge in the largely inaccessible thicket.

In addition to “Brier Patch,” Hayden’s Boogey Men, a solo show responding to cultural issues and a harsh political environment, is on view through April 17 in Miami. Explore more of the Dallas-born artist’s works on his website and Instagram.

 

“Brier Patch” at Madison Square Park (2022). Image courtesy of the artist and Madison Square Park Conservancy, by Yasunori Matsui

“Brier Patch” at Madison Square Park (2022). Image courtesy of the artist and Madison Square Park Conservancy, by Yasunori Matsui

“Brier Patch” at Madison Square Park (2022). Image courtesy of the artist and Madison Square Park Conservancy, by Yasunori Matsui

“Brier Patch” at Madison Square Park (2022). Image courtesy of the artist and Madison Square Park Conservancy, by Yasunori Matsui

Hayden creating “Brier Patch “at Showman Fabricators (2021). Image courtesy of the artist and Madison Square Park Conservancy, by Yasunori Matsui

Hayden installing “Brier Patch” (2022). Image courtesy of the artist and Madison Square Park Conservancy, by Rashmi Gill

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Imaginative Doodles by Vincent Bal Recast Shadows as Witty Illustrations

All images © Vincent Bal, shared with permission

Belgium-based illustrator and filmmaker Vincent Bal (previously) sees the playful potential of shadows cast by eyeglasses, a peeled clementine, and other household objects. Completed with minimal sketches in black ink, Bal’s reimagined scenes transform the holes of a colander into winter snowfall, an open headphone case into a glum dog, and the translucent blue light from a plastic cup into a swimming pool. His clever illustrations are part of an ongoing Shadowology project, which includes the inventive pieces shown here and a short film about a boy whose doodles come alive. You can shop prints, postcards, and other goods on Etsy, and keep an eye on Bal’s Instagram for information about upcoming exhibitions in London and Seoul.

 

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Tools, Snacks, and Other Household Goods Become Clever Wearables by Nicole McLaughlin

All images © Nicole McLaughlin, shared with permission

Peek into Nicole McLaughlin’s closet—or scroll through her Instagram—and you’ll find (literally) toasty winter hats, plush, pocketed work boots, and sandals that double as snacks. The New York-based designer is known for her playful edible apparel and brand-based conversions that turn household objects, logos, and individual servings of food into amusing and functional goods. Her latest creations include toothpaste tube slip-ons, LEGO shorts, and a vest designed with scent in mind. (via This Isn’t Happiness)

 

 

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Photographic Composites Document the Mesmerizing Flight Trails of Vultures, Crows, and Bats

“Lockdown Vultures (Moab Mesa).” All images © Doris Mitsch, shared with permission

In Locked Down Looking Up, Bay Area photographer Doris Mitsch captures the swirling, shapeshifting flight patterns of birds and other winged creatures: a flock of vultures creates coils and whirls between rugged mesas, crows descend toward a forest in single-file trails, and gulls congregate above the sea in lengthy lines.

The ongoing project began early in 2020 when Mitsch set up a camera outside her front door and shot consecutive images of birds flying around her home. “While everything in my life has come to a standstill, up in the air, there is still a lot going on,” she writes. She’s since traveled along the California coast and to Moab’s desert landscapes capturing similar swarming phenomena featuring vultures, gulls, and crows.

Mitsch’s composites vary in length of time, number of birds, and total images combined, which ranges from 500 to 5,000. “One of my favorites, ‘Lockdown Vulture (Signature)’ shows just one vulture making slow circles over the course of about a minute,” Mitsch tells Colossal. “My other favorite, ‘Lockdown Vultures (Moab Mesa)’ shows about five minutes’ worth of 25 or so birds circling together.”

In addition to this series, Mitsch also shot a collection devoted to starlings’ murmurations, which you can see on her site. You might enjoy this bird-shaped swarm, too. (via swissmiss)

 

“Lockdown Vulture (Signature)”

“Lockdown Vultures (Moab Slope)”

“Lockdown Swallows (Hunting)”

“Lockdown Crows (Evening Commute)”

“Lockdown Crows (One Tree)”

“Lockdown Bats (Pas de Deux)”

“Lockdown Gulls (Sea Ranch)”

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