A Humbling Short Film Visualizes the Breathtaking Magnitude of 13.8 Billion Years of Cosmic Existence

The human conception of time is limited. We often think in hours, days, and years, units of measurement that are comprehensible when considering our lifetimes or those of generations past. Even decades and centuries, though, are only a minuscule fraction in the timeline of the universe and are wholly inadequate when assessing a nearly 14-billion-year history.

A new short by Alex Gorosh (previously) and Wylie Overstreet (previously) helps to visualize the immensity of cosmic creation beyond the clock and calendar. Four years in the making, “To Scale: TIME” takes the filmmakers to a 4.3-mile stretch across the arid Mojave Desert, where they install small lights to create a timeline of human civilization and the broader universe. Augmented with visuals of galaxies and historical events, the resulting work captures the magnitude of 13.8 billion years and is an awe-inspiring reminder of how small humans are in both time and space.

Watch the humbling film on YouTube, where Gorosh and Overstreet also share a making-of video that documents their process. “To Scale: TIME” is the second project in the duo’s series of model-based works and follows their striking visualization of the solar system.

 

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Bursting Blooms Link Modernity and History in Gordon Cheung’s Decadent Still-Life Paintings

“Gardens of Perfect Brightness” (2022), Financial Times newspaper, archival inkjet, acrylic, and sand on linen, 200 x 150 x 3 centimeters. All images © Gordon Cheung, shared with permission

In 1634, during the Dutch Golden Age, an unprecedented financial phenomenon began in the form of skyrocketing prices for rare and fashionable tulip bulbs. By 1637, the speculative bubble collapsed, and while the plummeting price of tulips may have bankrupted a few investors, it didn’t take a steep toll on the overall economy, unlike the U.S. housing bubble that spurred a global crisis and led to severe recession in 2008.

“Tulip mania” is a term still used today to describe when the prices of assets—such as mortgages or technology—rise exponentially from their intrinsic or general market values and present a threat to economic stability. For London-based artist Gordon Cheung, Dutch still-life paintings provide a lens through which to explore ties between historical socio-economic systems, modern capitalism, and China’s new power on the global stage. “In part, they are about the rise and fall of civilisations, as well as the romantic language of still-life painting: futile materialism and fragile mortality reflected by the transient beauty of flowers,” he says. 

Like much 16th and 17th-century Dutch painting, the artist’s still-lifes brim with symbolism and references to historical events. The linen surface is collaged with pages from the Financial Times, literally grounding the work in data and news about the global markets. The painting above, for example, references the Old Summer Palace of Beijing, also known as Yuanmingyuan, which translates to “Gardens of Summer Brightness.”

 

c Detail of “Gardens of Perfect Brightness”

The residence of Qianlong Emperor and his successors, the Summer Palace was home to celebrated gardens and an enormous collection of historic treasures and antiques dating back thousands of years. French and British troops captured the palace in October 1860 during the Second Opium War, which led to mass vandalism, looting, and eventually, total destruction.

In “Gardens of Summer Brightness,” the two holy mountains of Sinai and Song flank the vase in the background, suggesting a collision that may have led to the fractured pillar. A map of the park punctuated by an architectural ruin tops the pedestal, and the mille-fleurs or “thousand flowers” style, a popular motif in the Qianlong period, decorates the vase. The vessel also contains botanicals by the emperor’s court painter Giuseppe Castiglione and sunflowers to symbolize the face of the sun as a deity and energy source.

Combining inkjet printing methods, acrylic paint, and sand to create a variety of textures and three-dimensional features, Cheung’s flowers appear to delicately float across ethereal surfaces. He assembles each bloom by applying thick paint onto plastic that can be peeled off when dry and collaged onto the canvas. He is interested in what he calls the “Ozymandian eventuality” of grandeur and power to physically and metaphorically crumble over time, using sand to represent impermanence and the constantly shifting nature of the human condition.

Cheung’s solo exhibition The Garden of Perfect Brightness opens at the Atkinson Museum in Southport, England, on June 3. You can find more on his website, and follow Instagram for updates.

 

“Augury of Dongguan” (2022), Financial Times newspaper, archival inkjet, acrylic, and sand on linen, 87 x 52 x 5 centimeters

Detail of “Augury of Dongguan”

“Augury of Xi’an” (2022), Financial Times newspaper, archival inkjet, acrylic, and sand on linen, 82 x 57 x 5 centimeters

“Augury of Hong Kong” (2022), Financial Times newspaper, archival inkjet, acrylic, and sand on linen, 82 x 57 x 5 centimeters

Detail of “Augury of Hong Kong”

“Traveller From an Antique Land” (2022), Financial newspaper, archival inkjet, acrylic, and sand on paper, 135 x 100 x 5 centimeters

“Timeless Sands” (2022), Financial newspaper, archival inkjet, acrylic, and sand on paper, 135 x 100 x 5 centimeters

Detail of “Timeless Sands”

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‘At the Precipice’ Emphasizes the Role of Emotion, Tactility, and the Senses in Understanding the Climate Crisis

Nathalie Miebach, “Build Me a Platform”

How does it feel to inhabit an irreversibly damaged planet? An exhibition opening at the Design Museum of Chicago this summer brings together works by ten artists and collectives that answer this question through data, color, tactility, and material.

Curated by Colossal, At the Precipice: Responses to the Climate Crisis considers physical and emotional reactions in the era of environmental disaster and emphasizes how art can offer an accessible entry point into such an overwhelming and dire emergency. Varying in medium and methodology, the works included explore several of the most urgent issues affecting the world today.

The Tempestry Project returns to the Paleolithic era to visualize how rapidly our climate has changed in the last few centuries alone, while Luftwerk and Zaria Forman consider the impacts of a warming world on glaciers and arctic regions. Morel Doucet, Nathalie Miebach, and Migwa Nthiga are concerned with the increasing intensity of weather events and subsequent forced migration, and Jean Shin and Chris Pappan look to shifts in rivers and access to water sources. Selva Aparicio questions loss, remains, and acts of remembrance, while Redemptive Plastics offers a localized and scalable solution to waste.

At the Precipice runs from July 14 to October 30.  We’ll be announcing talks, workshops, and other programming in the coming weeks, so stay tuned for details.

 

Help Us Knit a Century of Chicago Weather!

As part of the exhibition, the Design Museum of Chicago has generously kickstarted a Chicago Tempestry Collection, which will use twelve knitted works to highlight changes in the local weather patterns during the last 120 years. Anyone interested in creating a tempestry—a tapestry depicting daily temperatures—to be added to the collection and displayed at the museum can purchase a kit on the project’s site.

 

 

Morel Doucet, “Black Maiden in Veil of Midnight” (left) and “Olokun” (right)

Zaria Forman, still from “Overview: 12 Miles of Lincoln Sea in the Arctic Ocean, North of Greenland”

Migwa Nthiga, “The Warriors Of The North”

Selva Aparicio, “Our Garden Remains”

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article ‘At the Precipice’ Emphasizes the Role of Emotion, Tactility, and the Senses in Understanding the Climate Crisis appeared first on Colossal.

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Invoking Design Principles, Kpe Innocent Builds Minimal Human Figures with Geometric Shapes

All images © Kpe Innocent, shared with permission

In his most recent paintings in acrylic, Kpe Innocent reduces the human body to its rudimentary forms. The Accra, Ghana-based artist translates arms, bellies, and heads into cylinders and geometric shapes rendered in minimal palettes of black, white, and pastel colors. Occupying vast swaths of negative space, the figures have “room to pause and breathe,” and the paired-down settings draw greater attention to the engineered anatomy.

In a note to Colossal, Innocent shares that he’s been interested in stories of creation and how those connect to his faith and practice. “I am convinced by looking at how systems operate and the evidence of design in the natural world that an intelligent mind is behind the natural things we see (where there is design, there is a designer),” he says, “and this fact can be seen in how we humans interpret and mimic nature in design processes even.” DNA codes and the building blocks of digital interfaces continue to inform his paintings, and after working in earth tones and more dense environments, he’s now gravitating toward clean lines and minimal brushstrokes that limit the markings of the artist’s hand.

Innocent currently has a limited-edition print available through Moosey Art, where he will soon release a new sculpture, as well. His works will be on view at Volta Art Fair with African Arty and Maison Ozmen in Paris in the coming months, and you can find more of his paintings and glimpses into his process on Instagram. (via Juxtapoz)

 

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Flat-Lays of Halved Walnuts and Other Shells Study the Diversity of the Botanical Fruits

Carya hickory sections. All images © Jonas Frei, shared with permission

During a visit to the Zürich arboretum, Jonas Frei came across a nut species rarely found in Europe. The Juglans cinerea, or white walnut, is native to the U.S. and Canada and has a ribbed, oblong shell that once cracked, reveals a sweet, fleshy innard. Its presence in the Swiss enclave dates back to 1887, when the botanist Carl Joseph Schröter planted a tree that eventually produced the non-native fruits and sparked Frei’s enduring interest in the plant genus.

Based in Schaffhausen, Frei is a naturalist, illustrator, and landscape architect whose interest in botany has taken him to gardens, arboretums, and parks throughout Europe and North America. He recently spent time in Harvard’s Arnold Arboretum after being awarded the James R. Jewett Prize, which allowed him to expand his research on the walnut and explore how it’s migrated over centuries. Much of his work is focused on making science easily digestible and visually intriguing to a general audience. “Research itself really is my goal,” he tells Colossal. “I want to understand the subject and make the knowledge accessible through my writing and the aesthetical presentation of the diversity of species and cultivars.”

Shared through illustrations and flat-lay photos, Frei’s studies have recently culminated in a book devoted to walnuts and hickories, which brings together the cultural, historical, and botanical importance of these diverse plants. “I was driven not only by my scientific interest in Juglandaceae but also by my enthusiasm for the aesthetics of their habits, leaves, and fruits. The readers of my book should be able to make their own journey of discovery through the walnut family, on the tracks I have uncovered with my research,” he says.

The expanded edition of Frei’s book, which includes updates from his studies at Arnold Arboretum, is available along with posters, prints, and a similar volume focused on hazelnuts on his site. Follow his latest research on Instagram.

 

Juglans sinesis

Juglans nigra

Junglandaceae

Corylus

Walnusshaelften

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Paper-Thin Ceramic Pieces Puzzle Together to Form Elegant Vessels by Ellis Moseley

All images © Ellis Moseley, shared with permission courtesy of Hugo Michell Gallery

Through a methodical and labor-intensive process of layering petals of thin clay, Adelaide-based artist Ellis Moseley creates elegant, airy vessels that appear to flutter where they sit. Using paper-clay slip—a fine-grained, lightweight, and durable ceramic medium made from mixing clay slip with fiber—the sculptures are composed of strips dried on a plaster bat. The individual pieces are then peeled away and applied to a smooth base. He begins at the bottom and works up in a loose spiral, retaining the delicate edges and emphasizing each vessel’s contours.

In his recent exhibition Heist at Hugo Michell Gallery, Moseley focused on a color palette of pastel pinks, blues, and greens, coalescing fine art and functionality. Find more of his slip-cast work on his website.

 

 

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Poetic Drawings by Yuria Okamura Meditate on the Sacredness of Plants

All images © Yuria Okamura, shared with permission

Melbourne-based artist Yuria Okamura intertwines sacred geometries with medicinal botanicals in her delicate drawings and wall works. Evoking animism and the Buddhist and Shinto beliefs she encountered during her childhood in Japan, Okamura’s renderings in pen and acrylic create sites for meditation and contemplation with symmetries, muted color palettes, and subdued, calming auras.

Often accompanying the smaller works on paper are large-scale patterns the artist draws on the walls surrounding the pieces to create immersive architectural installations. This pairing establishes “a temple-like space for enshrining nature,” she says, and together, the works emulate the quiet, reflective qualities of places of worship.

Some of Okamura’s works shown here are on view through August 20 as part of Melbourne Now at NGV Australia. Find more of her exquisite renderings on her site and Instagram.

 

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