Balloon-Like Sculptures Reimagine Blown Glass in Matthew Szösz’s ‘Inflatables’ Series

“untitled(inflatable)no. 33.” All images © Matthew Szösz, shared with permission

The art of blown glass takes on new meaning in Matthew Szösz’s Inflatables series. About 15 years ago, the artist was interested in challenging assumptions about how the material could be worked and what form it could take. “In the craft and design field, the way that we make things has a profound effect on what we make,” he tells Colossal. “Blown glass and thrown pots are round; houses and furniture are rectangular. I spend a good portion of my time experimenting with process to try and use a new way of making to create new families of objects and forms.” The resulting sculptures capture a playful tension between fragility and strength, ephemerality and durability.

Using glass panes or sheets from salvaged windows, Szösz carefully plans the shape of the final form and cuts numerous pieces that are measured to slightly overlap so that when fused together, they create tight seams. Ceramic fiber paper separates the layers to prevent the material from sticking to both the kiln and itself. At 1,600 degrees Fahrenheit, the piece is swiftly removed from the kiln and inflated, balloon-like with compressed air. The glass is malleable for only about a minute at most before it cools to a hard object. “There is very little shaping that can be done during the inflation, so the process relies entirely on the preparation of the material,” Szösz explains. “Once you pull it out to inflate it, what you get is what you get.”

Szösz’s work with sheet glass take numerous forms, and his sculptures are currently on view in two exhibitions at BWA Wrócław Galleries of Contemporary Art, including a solo show titled Gold Standard, and the group exhibition Autonomous Zones, a collaboration with Pilchuck Glass School. You can follow more of the artist’s work on Instagram and his website.

 

“untitled(inflatable)no. 95r”

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“untitled(inflatable)no. 71a”

“untitled(inflatable)no. 93irk”

Left: “untitled(inflatable)no. 87.” Right: “untitled(inflatable)no. 75g”

“untitled(inflatable)no. 90ir”

“untitled(inflatable)no. 85b”

“untitled(inflatable)no. 91irb”

“”untitled(inflatable)no. 89g”

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Thousands of Structures Populate a Growing Whimsical Metropolis in Charles Young’s Miniature Cities

All images © Charles Young, shared with permission

After picking up a copy of Japanese artist Sanzo Wada’s A Dictionary of Color Combinations a few years ago, Charles Young decided to divert the course of his otherwise monochromatic body of work. The Scottish artist, who is currently based in Edinburgh, has accumulated an extensive archive of tiny buildings, transportation, and public architecture all created in white paper. The stark structures number well into the thousands and together, sprawl into massive miniature metropolises. They’re now joined by similarly sized creations in full color.

Published around 1930, Wada’s reference manual groups pigments into complementary combinations of two, three, or four, and Young uses these pairings as the foundation for his latest models of office buildings, churches, factories, and stations. He finished all of the four-color studies back in 2021 and has since moved on to those with three, a set he plans to wrap up in the new year. “The whole project is like a journal or sketchbook, and not much planning goes into each piece before I start work,” he says. “The project is really about the process and the massing of individual parts rather than each individual building.”

After formulating a general idea of the intended piece, Young prints each hue onto a single sheet of watercolor paper. “I’ll choose one of the colours to be the main feature, used in the walls, and others as accents or for the roofs. It’s a kind of intuitive process where there just seems to be a right way to do it,” he shares. Once cut and assembled into their final three-dimensional shapes, the works are either left as standalone structures or animated in whimsical, stop-motion movements, like a train spinning on its platform or an excavator dipping its bucket.

As mentioned, Young’s three-color studies are ongoing, and you can follow his progress on those on Instagram.

 

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Quirky Clothesline Creatures Saunter Across Helga Stentzel’s Landscape Illusions

“Laundrosaurus.” All images © Helga Stentzel, shared with permission

A wooly sweater returns to its material roots in the latest creatures to spring from Helga Stentzel’s clothesline menagerie. The London-based artist captivated audiences last year with her whimsically strung farm animals that appeared to put old shirts and jackets out to pasture. Now, Stentzel’s collection of characters includes a dinosaur of bleached white undergarments, a sweatpants camel, and the aforementioned sweater sheep. Positioned against expansive views of deserts and mountainous areas, the stylish illusions take a playful approach to laundry day.

Alongside these creatures, Stentzel has been creating 3D works, some of which are on view at CXC Art Museum in Seoul. Pick up a print in her shop, and follow her on Instagram to keep an eye on the additions to what the artist terms “household surrealism.”

 

“Zelda” (2022)

“Inky”

“Baa-baa-ra” (2022)

“Camella” (2022)

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Delicate Spikes and Lush Petals Bloom from Avital Avital’s Voluptuous Porcelain Vessels

All images © Avital Avital, shared with permission

The diverse world of plants and flowers is a source of fascination for ceramic artist Avital Avital, who crafts delicately detailed vessels from porcelain. In her studio in Ramat Gan, Israel, the artist sculpts slender petals, fragile spikes, and orbs dabbed with confectionary-like dots. She is interested in the relationship between functionality and decoration, drawing on the rich history of clay as a medium and mingling technical skill with conceptual ideas.

Inspired by nature’s boundless variety of forms and colors, her choice of material complements her subject matter: “I am interested in balancing between the delicacy of the porcelain and its strength and to use its potential transparency by sculpting colorful petals that are skin-like when directed to a source of light.”

You can find more of Avital’s work on Instagram.

 

 

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New Banksy Works Emerge Among the Destruction in Ukraine

All images shared with permission

Banksy (previously) has been traveling through the battle-scarred streets of Ukraine, producing a slew of works directly confronting Russia’s unwarranted and unjust aggression. The elusive street artist’s signature stencils have been spotted among the rubble of bombed buildings and barricades in Borodyanka and Gorenka, both in the Bucha Region, while others are just outside the capital city of Kyiv. Each centers on the strength and resiliency of the Ukrainian people.

The works broadly criticize the ongoing war and its disastrous effects on the everyday lives of citizens, depicting a woman outfitted with hair rollers, a bathrobe, and a gas mask grasping a fire extinguisher, a bearded man scrubbing his back in an open-air bathtub, and silhouettes of young children teeter-tottering on a left-behind hunk of steel. Perhaps the most pointed piece is that of a young boy slamming Russian President Vladimir Putin to the ground during a judo match—according to the BBC, Putin has projected an interest in the sport.

Banksy has only shared one work of a gymnast doing a handstand on Instagram so far, although a few others have appeared on the anonymous artist’s Gross Domestic Product account. This is the first time Banksy has emerged since the Spraycation series 15 months ago.

 

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Tiers of Dyed Water Burst into Perfectly Concentric Circles in Jack Long’s Energetic Photos

All images © Jack Long, shared with permission

For at least a decade, Jack Long has paired his day job in advertising photography with a growing archive of personal projects that explore the energetic, dynamic qualities of liquid. His latest series centers on circular pools of water that splash outward, creating colorfully tiered layers that build up the dimension of a typically gravity-bound material. Although the liquid appears to be spraying outward after being punctured by an object dropped from above, it is actually gurgling upward from a custom-designed fountain. Long shares with Colossal that the machine took about two years to build and produces pools that reach about 30 inches in diameter, which he has to photograph within a fraction of a second to capture the perfectly concentric effect.

You can find more of Long’s hypnotic works on Behance, Instagram, and his site.

 

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