Mysterious Creatures Emerge from Recycled Materials in Sculptures by Spencer Hansen

“BADU” and “FINCH” in collaboration with Jason Siegel. All images © Spencer Hansen, shared with permission

Long-legged creatures don otherwordly masks in sculptures by Bali-based artist Spencer Hansen, whose work explores identity and connection through a cast of uncanny characters. Using primarily natural, found, and recycled materials like wood, metal, bone, plant fibers, and ceramic, he draws inspiration from surrounding environment and frequent travels. Originally from Idaho, he relocated to Bali where he built a workshop that houses studios and live-work space for a team of skilled artisans who help to bring the pieces to life.

Alongside business partner Shayne Maratea, with whom he founded independent clothing and art company BLAMO, Hansen often collaborates with artists and photographers to merge sculpture and performance. Intended to inspire curiosity and play, the characters are carved and assembled in a variety of scales, from toy-like figurines to life-size suits, with mysterious faces that resemble shamanic masks.

Hansen has a solo exhibition opening in December at Spencer Lynne Galleries in Dallas, and you can find more of his work on his website and Instagram.

 

“BOBA”

“Eternal Embrace” collaboration with Naomi Samara. Suit worn by Aleph Geddis. Hands: Naomi Samara, Chantal Ka, and Shayne Maratea

Left: “EQUUS.” Right: “Tikus”

Left: Head of “LELA.” Right: “M11 Topeng Barat”

“LELA”

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Delicate Crocheted Patterns Splice and Embellish Susanna Bauer’s Dried Leaf Sculptures

“Sum of the Parts” (2022), magnolia, oak, cottonwood, eucalyptus, plane tree, beech leaves, 38 x 34 centimeters. All images by Art Photographers, © Susanna Bauer, shared with permission

Vintage lace and the intricate innards of cells influence the thread components of Susanna Bauer’s crocheted works. The German artist, who lives in the U.K., stitches leaves she’s found, washed, and dried, a painstaking process made more laborious by the inherent fragility of the material. “Taking time beneath trees, gathering leaves, contemplating their shapes, imperfections, and details lies at the basis of my process. Along with this quiet gathering, stories form, dialogues between leaves emerge, reflections on time and change and interpersonal connections,” Bauer shares.

Many of the artist’s recent works are on view as part of her solo show Gathering Stories, which translates those conversations and themes into three-dimensional pieces. Similar to her earlier series, this new collection is diverse in species and crocheted patterns. In “Sum of Parts,” various segments from six different trees are spliced with natural cotton thread, while “Blossom” surrounds a single magnolia leaf with fibrous filigree.

Gathering Stories is on view through January 14, 2023, at Le Salon Vert in Carouge, Geneva. You can find more of her work on her site and Instagram.

 

“Emergence l” (2022), magnolia leaves, cotton thread, 50 x 50 x 5 centimeters

“Blossom” (2022), magnolia leaf, cotton thread, 30 x 30 centimeters

“Haven” (2022), magnolia leaves, cotton thread, 42 x 47 centimeters

“Time (Spring 22)” (2022), oak leaf cotton thread, 30 x 30 centimeters

“Sharing Dreams” (2022), magnolia leaves, cotton thread, 30 x 30 centimeters

“Emergence l” (2022), magnolia leaves, cotton thread, 50 x 50 x 5 centimeters

Top left: “Thrive lll” (2022), magnolia leaf, cotton thread, 30 x 22 centimeters. Top right: “Breathing lll” (2022), magnolia leaf, cotton thread, 38 x 28 centimeters. Bottom left: “Symmetry” (2022), magnolia leaf, cotton thread, 38 x 38 centimeters. Bottom right: “Calibration,” (2022), magnolia leaf, cotton thread, 52 x 42 inches

“Ginkgo Circle lll” (2022), ginkgo leaf, cotton thread, 21 x 17 centimeters

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Join Us on Mastodon for Daily Art and Culture Updates

Colossal is now on Mastodon! We joined this growing social network as an alternative to Twitter, where we’ll remain for at least a while longer, but we hope you’ll join us on this new platform, too. We like Mastodon because it has a lot of similar features, but unlike Twitter, which is privately owned, Mastodon is open-source and ad-free. You can find us at mastodon.art/@colossal, and remember, you can always follow the latest on Colossal through Pinterest, Tumblr, and our email newsletters.

 

 

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Wooden Pixels Dissipate from Han Hsu-Tung’s Fragmented Figurative Sculptures

“Hussar” (2022), mixed wood, 71 x 81 x 26 centimeters. All images © Han Hsu-Tung, shared with permission

Digital and analog realms collide in the dynamic sculptures of Taiwanese artist Han Hsu-Tung (previously). Using soft western redcedar or Laotian fir, Han carves wooden animals and figures that are whisked into pixels, which appear to dissolve and float away from the central form. One of his most recent works, the stately warrior-like “Shaolin,” also features a kinetic component that shifts the blocks in jarring, horizontal movements. Taking approximately three to four months to complete, each work blends a computerized vision with the traditional medium as it draws attention to the scattered nature of the virtual world and how individual elements are essential to the whole.

Explore more of Han’s fragmented sculptures on his site and Instagram.

 

“Sunset Clouds” (2022), mixed wood, 57 x 43 x 14 centimeters

“Shaolin” (2020), western redcedar, 130 x 78 x 40 centimeters

Detail of “Hussar” (2022), mixed wood, 71 x 81 x 26 centimeters

“The Dawn” (2021), western redcedar, 101 x 77 x 40 centimeters

Detail of “The Dawn” (2021), western redcedar, 101 x 77 x 40 centimeters

“The Pacific” (2020), western redcedar and Laotian fir, 180 x 150 x 84 centimeters

Detail of “Sunset Clouds” (2022), mixed wood, 57 x 43 x 14 centimeters

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Balloons Puff and Twist into an Elaborate Inflatable Ensemble by Masayoshi Matsumoto

All images © Masayoshi Matsumoto, shared with permission

Armed with colorful balloons and plenty of air, Masayoshi Matsumoto (previously) twists and ties a playfully quirky menagerie of inflatable creatures. A chemical engineer by day, the artist spends his off hours stretching the malleable material into a sticky-fingered tree frog or plump squirrel, elevating the creations typically associated with children’s birthday parties or carnivals into elaborate sculptural works.

Matsumoto is loyal to the bendable material and forgoes paints, glues, and other fasteners, and many of the animals accentuate the shape of the balloons themselves: deflated tips resemble claws and puffed oblongs hang like shaggy fur or splay upward like a rooster’s crest.

Find more of the latex animals on the artist’s Instagram and Tumblr, and head to YouTube for tutorials on creating your own characters, as well.

 

 

 

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Delicate Slivers of Air-Dry Clay Form Breezy, Idyllic Landscapes by Alisa Lariushkina

All images © Alisa Lariushkina, shared with permission

One can almost feel the breeze as it swishes through grasslands and ripples streams in the swirling textures of artist Alisa Lariushkina’s bucolic landscapes. Based in Vilnius, the artist draws inspiration from earlier works or from photographs that people share with her. Composed from delicate slivers of air-dry clay, she assembles pieces that subtly shift in size and hue to reflect the sun at different times of day, meadows and flowers that sway in the wind, and the atmosphere of distant mountains. You can follow Lariushkina’s work on Instagram.

 

 

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Molded from Mycelium, a Sustainable Pendant Lamp is Shaped Like a Mushroom Cap

All images © Myceen, shared with permission

Fungi isn’t usually something we welcome indoors, but Estonian studio Myceen sees home decoration a bit differently. Focusing on furniture and interior design products, the team has found an enlightening application for mycelium, the fibrous root-like system produced by fungus that spreads below the Earth’s surface and gathers nutrients. “B-Wise” is a sustainably-grown pendant lamp (you read that right!) that combines one of nature’s most resilient materials with recycled byproducts into a light fixture that looks like it was just plucked from the soil.

The production of each piece begins with combining organic waste materials like sawdust and straw into a mold along with the mycelium, giving the organism five weeks’ worth of food to promote expansion. After that, the lampshade is removed from the mold and dehydrated to prevent any further growth.

You can see more work from Myceen on its website and on Instagram. (via Yanko Design)

 

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