In ‘Doom & Bloom,’ Lisa Ericson Illuminates the Surreal Impacts of Rising Sea Levels

“Extinguish.” All images courtesy of Corey Helford Gallery, shared with permission

Magical, surreal companionship characterizes Lisa Ericson’s hyperrealistic paintings in acrylic, which depict unusual pairs of species in easy coexistence. The Portland-based artist (previously) is known for illuminating flora and fauna and emphasizing the impending impacts of the climate crisis, particularly rising sea levels that in many of her latest works, encroach on her subjects’ environments. She shares about her chiaroscuro-style works:

I use the black background to create the drama of the spotlight on my chosen subject. It singles them out, exposes their every tiny detail, and creates a void of the unknown around them. In that way, each piece becomes an intimate portrait. I think of the animals in my paintings as simultaneously representing the natural world and also reflecting our own human struggle and emotion. I like to draw parallels between the two.

On view this month at Corey Helford Gallery, Ericson’s solo show Doom & Bloom features six portraits of animals that accentuate the devastating effects of a warming planet. In “Chariot,” a turtle carries an entire ecosystem across the road, while “Edge of Night” portrays a fox trapped on a tree stump blossoming with pink coneflowers. Each painting harnesses the intrigue of vivid color to draw the viewer in while also serving as a poignant reminder of what’s at stake, and the title of the exhibition suggests that gloom isn’t the only option amid such heartbreaking circumstances.

Doom & Bloom is on view in Los Angeles from October 7 to November 11. Head to Instagram to glimpse Ericson’s process and how these paintings came to be.

 

“Chariot”

“Edge of Night”

Detail of “Edge of Night”

“Mother”

“Fortress”

Detail of “Fortress”

“Territorial”

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Lidar-Derived Aerial Maps Reveal the Dramatic Meandering Changes in River Banks Over Millenia

Lidar-derived image of the meandering Alabama River in Alabama, USA. The Cahaba River joins the Alabama in the upper center of the image. All images © Dan Coe, shared with permission

Dan Coe (previously) takes us back in time with his impressive collection of river images derived from lidar data. An acronym for “light detection and ranging,” lidar is often employed to make three-dimensional elevation maps. When used aerially, the technology is able to peer through trees and other vegetation to document topographic changes, structures from ancient civilizations, and other remnants of eras past currently disguised by growth.

For his part, Coe translates this collected data into vivid maps that unveil how river and delta patterns shift over hundreds of thousands of years within a single image. In one work, fractal-like tributaries extend in muted tones from the Alabama River, whose current-day shape is rendered in a bright, electrifying shade of blue. Many of the maps take similar forms as they show changes to the mainstems’ lengths and widths, along with losses and expansions in their offshoots.

Coe is currently the graphics editor at Washington Geological Survey, and some of his lidar work focuses on the ancient, ice age-era rivers embedded in the state’s landscape. You can explore a broader selection of his topographic time-travels on his site and Flickr.

 

Image of the Lena River Delta in Russia, derived from a high-resolution stereo digital elevation model.

Lidar-derived image of the Willamette River, Santiam River, and Luckiamute River north of Albany, Oregon.

Lidar-derived image of the Neches River in east Texas, U.S.

The Yellowstone River near Hysham, Montana. At almost 700 miles in length, the Yellowstone is the longest un-dammed river in the continental U.S.

Lidar-derived image of the Milk River in northeastern Montana. The Milk is a tributary of the Missouri River and its watershed covers parts of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Montana.

IFSAR-derived image of the Porcupine and Draanjik Rivers in Alaska.

The Vistula River (Wisla) floodplain near Szczucin, Poland. The Vistula is Poland’s prime river, flowing from the border with Czechia and Slovakia to the Baltic Sea.

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Eric Kogan Captures Coincidence and Chance Around New York City in His Playful Street Photography

All images © Eric Kogan, shared with permission

Wispy clouds nestle into architectural niches, drip down walls, and sway in nets in Eric Kogan’s serendipitous street photography (previously). During commutes around New York City, he spots playful and coincidental interactions between nature, light, and the human-built environment.

“Walks have always been a big part of the process,” he tells Colossal, sharing that being able to observe the city at a slow speed and stop when he notices a tantalizing scene is essential. He continues, “If there is a place that I have to be in my city and I could get there by foot, I would take it over using transportation. Not just for photography’s sake but also for the simple act of moving at my own pace.”

Find more on Kogan’s website and Instagram.

 

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Indigenous Cultural Abundance Overflows in Dana Claxton’s Vibrant Portraits

“Jeneen” (2018-2019), LED Firebox with trans-mounted chromogenic transparency, 60 x 40 inches. All images © Dana Claxton, shared with permission

In the vibrant, enigmatic portraiture series titled Headdress, Vancouver-based artist Dana Claxton celebrates Indigenous cultural abundance. Intricately stitched feathers, embellished baseball caps, and elaborately beaded jewelry spill over five figures, almost completely obscuring their faces. “In these portraits, the beadworks cover and espouse the womxn’s silhouettes, becoming more than just objects,” Claxton says in a statement. “The beadworks are cultural belongings, and the womxn are cultural carriers.”

The artist photographs each individual with her own possessions, such as Jeneen’s collection of accessories spanning three generations of Vuntut Gwich’in First Nation ancestry in Old Crow, Yukon. Dee and Dana wear pieces from an inter-tribal collection made by artisans from the Four Directions. Connie, who Claxton describes as a “matriarch of beadwork,” dons her own hand-beaded works, and Shadae includes a variety of caps, including a Coast Salish woven cedar hat, and her husband’s ceremonial powwow fans known as peyote fans.

Claxton’s work is included in the recently published book An Indigenous Present, and in 2024, the artist will present a solo exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art. You can explore much more work on her website.

 

“Dana” (2018-2019), LED Firebox with trans-mounted chromogenic transparency, 60 x 40 inches

“Shadae” (2018-2019), LED Firebox with trans-mounted chromogenic transparency, 60 x 40 inches

“Connie” (2018-2019), LED Firebox with trans-mounted chromogenic transparency, 60 x 40 inches

“Dee” (2018-2019), LED Firebox with trans-mounted chromogenic transparency, 60 x 40 inches

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Gargantuan Straw Creatures Rise from the Fields of Japan’s Annual Rice Harvest

All images courtesy of Wara Art Festival

In Japan’s Niigata prefecture, cooler weather marks the advent of enormous straw creatures materializing from the fields and stalking the changing landscape. Every year around the rice harvest, art students repurpose the crop’s leftover straw, or wara, into mammoth characters for the Wara Art Festival. Recent editions have brought dragons, a bonsai-like tree, and the widely popular maneki-neko, or beckoning cat, to the autumn terrain.

On view now at Uwasekigata Park, this year’s festival is themed Echigo no Umi, or Sea of Echigo. Several works envision marine creatures that would emerge from the water or fly above its surface, including an octopus with raised tentacles, diving dolphins, and a crested ibis, which, according to Spoon & Tamago, is said to have a symbiotic relationship with the sea.

If you’re in Niigata, you can see the thatched beasts through the end of October. Otherwise, check out the works in the 2021 edition on Colossal.

 

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Nicholas Rougeux Painstakingly Restores Hundreds of 19th-Century Hummingbird Illustrations

Poster design © Nicholas Rougeaux, shared with permission

Chicago-based designer Nicholas Rougeux is fascinated by early encyclopedic publications, from a 17th-century Dutch manuscript dedicated to mixing watercolors to Palladio’s The Four Books of Architecture. Most recently, he took an interest in ornithologist John Gould’s A Monograph of the Trochilidæ, or Family of Humming-Birds.

Published between 1849 and 1861, the beautifully illustrated five-volume series contains 360 hand-colored lithographic plates made in collaboration with his assistant, Henry Constantine Richter. “The monograph is considered one of the finest examples of ornithological illustration ever produced, as well as a scientific masterpiece,” Rougeux says on the project’s website, which provides context about the original publication.

Gould’s wife, Elizabeth, was also an accomplished artist who captured the likenesses of more than 600 birds, many of which were new to science. Her role in her husband’s publications was rarely credited, but a forthcoming book aims to change that, celebrating Elizabeth’s nearly forgotten contribution to natural history.

Rougeux spent nearly 150 hours scanning and digitally restoring hundreds of full-color plates from the original 5 volumes and a supplement that was published after Gould’s death, between 1880 and 1887. Rogeux color-corrected each image and conceived of an interactive, 21st-century way to reproduce the comprehensive tome in its entirety, linking to archival scans, and organizing the illustrations in the order they appeared in the original texts. Visitors to the site can deep-dive into every scientific detail captured in the original publication.

Taking the artworks one step further, Rougeux extracted 422 hummingbirds and arranged them into a dramatic poster, which you can purchase on the project site. See more of the designer’s work on his website, Behance, and Instagram.

 

Threnetes cirvinicaud

Detail of Rougeaux’s poster

Sternoclyta cyaneipectus

Phaethornis fraterculus

Leucippus fallax

Phaethornis superciliosus

Glaucis mazeppa

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A Wind-Powered Herd of Beach Animals Merge Into a Storm Defense System in Theo Jansen’s Latest ‘Strandbeest’

A brand new 18-meter-long Strandbeest scuttles across the sands of a beach in The Netherlands in a short video by Dutch artist Theo Jansen (previously), who has been releasing his otherworldly creatures into the world each year since 1990.

Throughout the summer, Jansen experimented with connecting several units together, which could work in succession. “Animaris Rex is a herd of beach animals whose specimens hold each other as defense against storms,” he says. “As individuals they would simply blow over, but as a group, the chance of surviving a storm would be greater.” Propelled by the wind with a series of large sails, the individual modules move in tandem to form a single entity.

See more on the artist’s website and YouTube.

 

All images © Theo Jansen

 

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