Massive Leafy Murals by Adele Renault Magnify the Verdant Textures of Plants

All images © Adele Renault, shared with permission

Similar to her abstract masses of feathers, a new series of murals by artist Adele Renault highlights the vibrant colors and textures abundant in nature. Plantasia, which consists of smaller works on canvas and large-scale public pieces, magnifies the leaves from dandelions, banana trees, stinging nettle, and other species. Enlarging the specimens to reveal the intricate vein networks and subtle grooves in their midst, the lush murals are bright standouts among largely urban landscapes.

Although she’s spent the last few years painting birds, Renault tells Colossal that her interest in and devotion to plants is much deeper. “My mum taught me so much about growing your own food and growing vegetables as a kid. I didn’t know I was storing up important knowledge. Then during the pandemic, I think anyone who had a bit of love for nature and plants had time to get back to it, which was my case, too,” she says.

Renault works from photographs taken of her houseplants, those she encounters in the wild, and pre-pandemic, the gardens of the Ron Finley Project in Los Angeles—she splits her time between the city and her native Belgium. “I just get very excited whenever I see the beams of sunlight hitting leaves in a certain way, making that green seem translucent,” she shares, adding that her most recent obsession is with the prickly pear cactus and its iridescent sheen.

Some of the Plantasia series will be on view this September in Des Moines when Renault will also release a book cataloging the works. You can follow news on that show, along with her latest pieces, on Instagram.

 

Stinging nettle, Sweden

Dandelion, Gent

Avocado, Bayreuth, Germany

Banana

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A Previously Unseen Collection of ‘How to Draw’ Books Picasso Made for His Daughter Are On View in Paris

Pablo Picasso, “Maya at the boat” (Paris, 5 February 1938). Image © Yageo Foundation Collection, Taïwan, and Succession Picasso 2022. All images shared with permission

Maya Ruiz-Picasso, Pablo Picasso’s eldest daughter with Marie-Thérèse Walter, used to join her father in the kitchen of their apartment to draw together. They filled multiple sketchbooks with playful renderings of animals, fruit, and clowns, and the Spanish artist even created a special book devoted to instructing Maya on how to paint.

These lovingly collaborative works are on view for the first time at The Picasso Museum in Paris after Maya’s daughter, Diana Widmaier-Ruiz-Picasso, discovered the collection of drawings while sorting through storage. When she showed them to her mother, Maya remembered creating the sketches during WWII when colored pencils and paper were difficult to come by. Diana said in an interview:

There’s a beautiful page where he’s drawing a bowl and she’s drawing a bowl. Sometimes she’s making an image and he’s doing another, showing her the right way to do it. Sometimes they would depict different scenes. Other times, he would draw a dog or a hat. Sometimes he’s using the whole page to draw one particular thing. Other times, he’s depicting certain scenes, scenes of the circus.

Alongside the sketchbooks, the exhibition features nine of the artist’s major works, photographs, and various ephemera, including origami sculptures he folded for Maya from exhibition invitations. Diana also noted that Picasso’s father, who was an art professor, taught him to draw “so that was something natural for him to do.”

Maya Ruiz-Picasso, Daughter Of Pablo is on view through December 31.

 

Pablo Picasso, Letter to Maya “! ​​My beloved daughter – MARIA…!”, Golfe-Juan, (August 27, 1946), private collection. Image © Succession Picasso 2022

Pablo Picasso, “Bird” (1947-1948), private collection. Image © Succession Picasso 2022

Pablo Picasso and Maya Ruiz-Picasso, apples, undated, private collection. Image © Succession Picasso 2022

Pablo Picasso, “Maya with doll and horse” (Paris, 1938), private collection. Image © Succession Picasso 2022

Edward Quinn, Picasso and Maya, Golfe-Juan, 1953-1954. Photo © Edward Quinn, Succession Picasso 2022

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Sensual Sculptures by Polly Verity Tease Moments of Intimacy Out of Single Sheets of Paper

All images © Polly Verity, shared with permission

Wales-based artist Polly Verity (previously) coaxes sheets of watercolor paper, canvas, and wire mesh into elegantly suggestive sculptures. The minimal works are carefully molded through a series of bends, twists, and slight folds that contour pursed lips or a rose grazing a nose, and each curve subtly alters the figure’s expression. Alongside her facial silhouettes, Verity also shapes fragmented torsos and voluptuous limbs, an expansion of her practice that connects the “sensual and yielding” material more directly to the subject matter.

“I work in the moment, perhaps imparting an initial deep crease in the paper, taken by the whim of the moment and open to any form that begins to suggest itself. I work with the paper, gently exaggerating a hint of form or gently working an area until a form feels sure and authentic,” the artist tells Colossal. There’s a delicate balance between the intimate and the erotic, though, and when the latter or a form that’s too personal emerges, she discards the piece.

Verity is currently collaborating with the sound collective Crimson Yew to create a body of work that responds to its live music—if you’re in Wales, you can catch their next performance on June 25 at Davies & Co. She also has a few pieces available in her shop and at The Old Bank Vault, and you can find much more of her practice on Instagram.

 

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Ceramic Tiles Overlay an Infinity-Shaped Roof at a Bamboo Pavilion in Sichuan Province

All images © Archi-Union Architects

Daoming Town in Sichuan Province, China, is known for its bamboo weaving traditions. “The practice,” says Archi-Union Architects, “is more than a rural industry. It is an integral part of the way families in the town spend time together and how neighbors visit with each another.”

One of the firm’s projects titled “In Bamboo” is an homage to this rich local custom. Constructed in just 52 days back in 2018, the multi-use pavilion stretches 1,800 square meters and contains space for exhibitions, gatherings, and dining. The steel and wood structure supports a twisting, infinity-shaped roof of small ceramic tiles, which slopes down near a reflective pool at the center of the building.

Evoking the brushstroke of a traditional Chinese landscape painting and situated amongst a bamboo forest, the Mobius-style design is meant to capture the relationships between interior and exterior and heritage and innovation. “The new definition offered for traditional paradigms and the rethinking of rural and urban issues provide a lens for thinking about the meaning of architecture in the present time,” said lead architect Philip F. Yuan.

Find more photos of “In Bamboo,” in addition to an archive of Archi-Union’s projects, on its site.

 

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Vivid Spectrums of Color Radiate from Chris Wood’s Intricate Installations of Dichroic Glass

Commission for Clé de Peau Beauté

“Light,” says Chris Wood, “is the purest form of radiance.” The Cambridgeshire-based artist is known for her dazzling installations made of dichroic glass—this transparent material produces a shifting spectrum of color depending on the viewpoint—that emit phenomenal prisms illuminated. Often arranged on a panel or wall, the works evoke organic patterns, like helices, murmurations, and in the case of Wood’s most recent piece, the spiral of a nautilus shell.

A commission from the beauty brand Clé de Peau Beauté in celebration of its 40th anniversary, this new rainbow-like installation revolves around that milestone. “There are 40 spirals, each with 40 dichroic elements to them. Embedded within each spiral is the number 40, written in binary code. The dichroic pieces will project 40 millimeters from the surface of the artwork. The outermost circle measures 1,600 millimeters in diameter—the square root of which is 40,” Wood (previously) says.

This incredibly intricate design also references the earth, moon, and sun through the three more prominent rings and expands on the intrinsic connection between the mathematical and natural. She explains:

I see this artwork as an interpretation of how radiance, much like ideas and discoveries, start from one central point and expand outwards… The whole design is built around Fibonacci’s golden ratio, which we see in natural forms from flowers to animal pattern. I was initially inspired by the nautilus shell. It is a wonderful representation of Fibonacci’s spiral. The form of the shell is structured to provide strength and protection, and the shell itself is iridescent. We find in this a representation of how radiance can be embodied within us, as projected to those around us.

Wood currently has a few smaller pieces available in her shop, and you can explore an archive of her works on her site and Instagram.

 

Detail of commission for Clé de Peau Beauté

Detail of commission for Clé de Peau Beauté

“Ahlia”

Detail of commission for Clé de Peau Beauté

“Murmuration” (2019)

Detail of “Murmuration” (2019)

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Vegetation and Hybrid Figures Entwine in Winnie Truong’s Mythical Collaged Drawings

“Mothercraft” (2022), drawing and cut paper collage on panel, 20 x 16 inches. All images © Winnie Truong, courtesy of VIVIANEART, shared with permission

Canadian artist Winnie Truong recontextualizes the sleek, piecey qualities of human hair in her cut-paper collages. Constructed in layers within rectangular frames, the surreal works utilize the soft texture to depict flowers, vegetation, and strange anthropomorphic figures with elongated fingers and faces obscured by body parts or surroundings. Each piece is rooted in Truong’s drawing practice, and the colored pencil renderings add depth to the mythical compositions.

An extension of her two-dimensional works, these dioramas similarly explore the connection between women and nature. Many of the hybrid figures are entangled with foliage and their own anatomies, positioning traditional understandings of beauty alongside disorienting and more fantastic forms.

Visit Truong’s Instagram for more of her recent works and a glimpse into her process.

 

“Yellow Wallpaper and Scarlet Vipers” (2021), drawing and cut paper collage on panel, 20 x 16 inches

“Lilies in the Bog” (2021), drawing and cut paper collage on panel, 20 x 16 inches

“Twin Letdown” (2021), drawing and cut paper collage on panel, 24 x 18 inches

“Eyes at Dusk” (2022), drawing and cut paper collage on panel, 24 x 20 inches

“Distal Edges” (2021), drawing and cut paper collage on panel

“Gentle Snares” (2021), drawing and cut paper collage on panel, 20 x 16 inches

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Vintage Typewriters Are Reassembled into Amazing Metallic Bird Sculptures by Jeremy Mayer

All images © Jeremy Mayer, shared with permission

Jeremy Mayer challenges the notion that typewriters’ creative output is confined to the written word. The artist scours shops and trash bins near his Bay Area studio for analog processors in disrepair that he then disassembles, sorts, and reconstructs into metallic sculptures. His previous works include symmetrical assemblages, anatomical recreations, and an ongoing series of birds, the most recent of which are shown here. Mayer builds every piece solely from original parts rather than soldering or gluing, and some sculptures, including the black crow with a Corona-brand typewriter logo on its back, feature spring-like components that allow the creatures to bob their heads.

Mayer is currently at work on a few large-scale reliefs, a kinetic lotus, skull, and additional birds, and you can follow updates and news about purchasing pieces on his Instagram. For more about his practice, check out the 2016 film California Typewriter, which documents his work alongside other enthusiasts.

 

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