Evening Sunlight Blankets the Dense Los Angeles Hills in an Ethereal Glow in Seth Armstrong’s Paintings

“Green” (2021), oil on wood panel, 66 x 66 inches

Los Angeles-based artist Seth Armstrong (previously) gravitates toward saturated palettes of greens and blues to render the steep, hilly landscapes of his hometown. Evening sunsets bathe the staggered houses, trees, and sloping streets in a warm glow, adding a tinge of magic to the densely populated neighborhoods. Balancing light with shadow and hyperrealism with more ethereal details, the oil-based works, while similar in composition and subject matter, rarely follow the same process, Armstrong shares. “Sometimes I rely heavily on a drawing to compose a painting, and sometimes I’ll jump straight into the wet stuff,” he tells Colossal. “I haven’t decided if I prefer a thin and complete underpainting, or if I like just slopping it on, straight up.”

Armstrong has paintings slated for a few upcoming shows, including with Asia Art Center at Jing Art in Beijing this May and this winter at Amsterdam’s Miniature Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. He’s also working on a number of commissions and new works, and you can follow his progress on Instagram.

 

“Lemon Yellow” (2021), oil on wood panel, 60 x 48 inches

“Electric Avenue” (2021), oil on wood panel, 48 x 36 inches

“Pastel Is Punk” (2022), oil on wood panel, 36 x 24 inches

“Braintree” (2021), oil on wood panel, 48 x 60 inches

“Mt. Angelus” (2021), oil on wood panel, 40 x 40 inches

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Web-Like String Installations by Chiharu Shiota Hold Tension Between Absence and Existence

A profound sense of curiosity and a search for answers consumes Chiharu Shiota’s practice. The Osaka-born, Berlin-based artist is known for her massive installations that crisscross and intertwine string into mesh-like labyrinths. Simultaneously dense in construction and delicate and airy, the site-specific works rely on negative space and a recurring theme of “absence in existence,” Shiota tells Louisiana Channel in a new interview.

Chronicling the artist’s evolution and surveying her works across decades, the short film visits her Berlin studio, where a suspended boat hangs from the ceiling and Shiota shares some childhood paintings. She describes the latter medium as limiting her expression, prompting  her first interactions with string and the concept of “drawing in the air.” The film then follows Shiota to Cisternerne in Copenhagen, where she weaves a web of white string across the pillars filling the eerie space for her ongoing Multiple Realities exhibition, which is on view through November 30.

 

Shiota works with what she terms “philosophies of the moment,” creating sprawling installations designed to elicit visceral reactions from those in their presence. The colors are symbolic, with red conveying relationships between people, black the universe, and white the beginning and purity. “Strings break, get tangled or tied together—just like people cut relationships, get tied together or tangled. It’s very much the same,” she says.

Travel and being “on the move” are when she typically gathers ideas for works, which aren’t sketched before she realizes them fully in their intended space. When an exhibition closes, the strings are cut and discarded, further embodying the conceptual aspects of her practice that meditates on life and death. “What world will there be after your body has disappeared? When I die, and my thoughts and ideas are gone… I wonder what will become of me. I create my works searching for these answers.”

Shiota has pieces on view in cities around the world at the moment, including Paris, Essen, Germany, and Aomori, Japan, and you can see the full list on her site.

 

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Kehinde Wiley Addresses Vulnerability and Resilience in a New Series of Monumental Portraits and Bronze Figures

“The Wounded Achilles (Fillipo Albacini)” (2022), oil on canvas, 70 1/8 × 107 7/8 inches. All images © Templon, Paris –Brussels, shared with permission

In 2008, artist Kehinde Wiley (previously) exposed the violence against Black bodies in a series of majestic portraits titled DOWN. Holbein’s painting “The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb,” which depicts an emaciated Jesus outstretched on white cloth, inspired Wiley’s collection that reimagined the 16th Century piece and other art historical works in the same vein with contemporary metaphors of pain and ecstasy. Centering on Black men lying on their sides with twisted limbs or supine against the artist’s signature floral backdrops, DOWN positioned the subjects as saints and heroes as they confronted death.

Now more than a decade later, Wiley returns to this series for a new body of work that expands on its themes and indictment of the continued brutality against Black people. An Archaeology of Silence, hosted by Fondazione Giorgio Cini for the Venice Biennale, exhibits new bronze figures and large-scale portraits featuring subjects in unguarded positions, their eyes closed, arms splaying outward, and bodies resting.

 

Front: “The Virgin Martyr Cecilia” (2022), bronze, 251 × 152 3/4 × 70 1/8 inches. Back: “Young Tarentine II (Ndeye Fatou Mbaye)” (2022), oil on canvas, 131 7/8 × 300 inches

Monumental in scale— “Femme Piquée Par Un Serpent (Mamadou Gueye),”  or “Woman Stung By A Snake (Mamadou Gueye),” is 25-feet wide, for example—the works portray Black men and women as icons, and while vulnerable, the figures exude a sense of resilience and perseverance, having endured exceptional pain and cruelty. Both sculptures and portraits speak to the ways technology has allowed more people to witness injustices that have been occurring for centuries. “That is the archaeology I am unearthing: The spectre of police violence and state control over the bodies of young Black and Brown people all over the world,” Wiley says, explaining further:

While this work is not specifically about tomb effigies, it does relate to death, mortality, powerlessness, and the downcast figure—the juxtaposition of death and decay in the midst of a narrative of youth and redemption. It is an expression of my desire to depict the struggles of Black and Brown youth globally, through the rubric of violence and power.

An Archaeology of Silence will be on view through July 24. You can explore more of Wiley’s practice on Instagram, and visit his shop for goods and prints that support Black Rock Senegal, the residency the artist established in 2019 in Dakar.

 

“Morpheus” (2022), bronze, 26 3/4 × 59 × 29 1/2 inches

Detail of “Morpheus” (2022), bronze, 26 3/4 × 59 × 29 1/2 inches

“Femme Piquée Par Un Serpent (Mamadou Gueye),”  or “Woman Stung By A Snake (Mamadou Gueye),” (2022), oil on canvas, 131 7/8 x 300 inches

“Dying Gaul (Roman 1st Century)” (2022), bronze, 21 1/8 × 18 7/8 × 47 inches

Detail of “Dying Gaul (Roman 1st Century)” (2022), bronze, 21 1/8 × 18 7/8 × 47 inches

“The Virgin Martyr St. Cecelia (Ndey Buri)” (2022), oil on canvas, 77 1/8 × 143 6/8 inches

“Sleep (Mamadou Gueye)” (2022), bronze, 11 4/5 × 51 1/6 × 21 1/4 inches

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A Mammoth Three-Volume Book Collection Presents Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel in Stunning 1:1 Detail

Millions of tourists stream through the hallowed halls of Vatican City to see one of Western art history’s most treasured artworks: Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel. Gazing up 44 feet from the floor, visitors witness the monumental painting sprawl across the expansive architecture as dramatic biblical scenes unfold. The only drawback of looking up at such a height is that it’s difficult to discern smaller features and subtleties. The Sistine Chapel, a massive three-volume tome published by Callaway Arts and Entertainment and Italy’s Scripta Maneant, is dedicated to the details and presents up-close 1:1 scale images of the artist’s seminal painting in a limited-edition book.

Reminiscent of the way Michelangelo erected scaffolding to paint the scenes over 500 years ago, over the course of 65 nights, two photographers ascended a 33-foot scaffolding to access close views of the ceiling. The structure was assembled and disassembled every evening to allow tourists to visit during the day. Approximately 270,000 high-resolution images captured the incredible characteristics of movement, contrast, and expression that cannot be seen from ground level.

Printed in Italian and English and limited to 1999 copies by the Vatican—which also stipulated there will be no reprints—only a few English language copies remain, although the price tag is an eye-watering $22,000. The 20-pound set includes additional masterpieces by Michelangelo, Botticelli, and other Renaissance artists. (via Kottke)

 

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Impossibly Small Houseplants and Basketry Crafted from Paper by Raya Sader Bujana

All images © Raya Sader Bujana. Photography by Leo García Méndez, shared with permission

Barcelona-based artist Raya Sader Bujana (previously) defines her work as something between sculpture and illustration, creating impossibly tiny replicas of houseplants that rest atop a finger. From leaves to blooms and thorns to branches, even the delicate woven baskets that contain the plants are constructed from paper with the aid of tweezers and scalpels in a process more akin to surgery than origami. Her background in architecture translates to an exacting quality of “composition, use of color, texture, volume, light and sometimes subject matter,” she shares. In addition to selling original works and prints on Etsy and Society6, Bujana also has a wide range of corporate clients like Coca Cola, Swarovski, and HP. You can follow more of her process and updates to her online shops on Instagram.

 

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Macro Shots of Glitter and Ink Simulate Dramatic Astronomical Events

The last time we checked in with filmmaker Vadim Sherbakov he was soaring high above Iceland, capturing stunning aerial views with the help of a drone. In his latest short, Velocity, he zooms into ethereal mixtures of soap, ink, glitter, and alochol that appears to simulate a combination of biological and galactic phenomena. The driving idea behind the film’s creation was simply the idea of “a colorful journey though uncharted cosmos,” says Sherbakov. He collaborated with set designer Luidmila Tregub who was responsible for creating the primordial mixture of liquids that result in several amazing sequences in the film. (via PetaPixel)

 

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Through Blocks of Geometric Color, Artist Derrick Adams Celebrates the Joy of Self-Expression

“Style Variation 35” (2020), acrylic paint and graphite on digital inkjet photograph, 245.1 x 153 x 4.4 centimeters. All images © Derrick Adams, courtesy Salon 94, New York

In Looks, artist Derrick Adams references the immense potential of a wig to alter an appearance and construct a persona. The exhibition, which is on view at the Cleveland Museum of Art through May 29 alongside a survey of art and fashion photography titled The New Black Vanguard (opens May 8), shows nine of Adam’s portraits rendered in the artist’s distinct geometric style evocative of “Benin heads, Kwele masks, Kota reliquary figures,” and other West African masks and sculptures, he says in a statement.

Standing more than eight feet tall, the acrylic-and-graphite works center on busts with direct gazes, their faces mapped with different skin tones and makeup lining rounded eyelids and lips. The elaborate wigs in rainbow stripes and faded ombre are inspired by the salons and shops in Adams’ Brooklyn neighborhood. He reinterprets these functional wearables as bold, two-dimensional portraits that speak to the importance of hair in Black culture and the power of defining oneself through spectacular, joyful adornments. He explains about the works:

I feel more than ever that it is essential for artists to make work that celebrates Black culture. As a Black man, I am aware of my vulnerability and susceptibility to trauma and oppression on a daily basis. I personally don’t need to be reminded of it in art and choose to instead highlight Black normalcy. Those who participate in Black culture understand there are images that are less important for us to see than images of joy.

For more of Adams’ works across painting, sculpture, collage, and performance, visit his site and Instagram.

 

“Style Variation 33” (2020), acrylic paint and graphite on digital inkjet photograph, 245.1 x 153 x 4.4 centimeters

“Style Variation 34” (2020), acrylic paint and graphite on digital inkjet photograph, 245.1 x 153 x 4.4 centimeters

“Style Variation 37” (2020), acrylic paint and graphite on digital inkjet photograph, 245.1 x 153 x 4.4 centimeters

“Style Variation 28” (2020), acrylic paint and graphite on digital inkjet photograph, 245.1 x 153 x 4.4 centimeters

“Style Variation 32” (2020), acrylic paint and graphite on digital inkjet photograph, 245.1 x 153 x 4.4 centimeters

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