Surreal Scenes Unfold in Sandy Skoglund’s Vibrant and Otherworldly Photographs

“Revenge of the Goldfish” (1981). All images © Sandy Skoglund, courtesy of Paci Contemporary, shared with permission

For more than five decades, Sandy Skoglund has explored a fusion of photography, installation, and conceptual art. The artist’s elaborately detailed scenes, built from a wide variety of materials, from furniture to papier-mâché to food, take months—sometimes years—to complete. One iconic image portrays two children in a blue bedroom, surrounded by bright orange goldfish, while in “Radioactive Cats,” we find ourselves peering at a couple in a gray kitchen as they go about normal activities among a clowder of glowing, green felines.

A new exhibition, The Imaginary Worlds of Photography, at Palazzo del Duca in Senigallia, Italy, celebrates Skoglund’s career through a survey of her remarkable photographs, emphasizing her attunement to the relationships between hues and contrasts, her subjects, and elements of each set. Often combining sculptural methods with a photographic aesthetic related to commercial advertising, she welcomes us into surreal and uncanny tableaux where instead of a clear narrative, we find realms of baffling wonder.

The Imaginary Worlds of Photography continues through June 2, 2024. Find more of Skoglund’s work on her website and Instagram.

 

“The Cocktail Party” (1992)

“Radioactive Cats” (1980)

“Atomic Love” (1992)

“Breathing Glass” (2008)

“Fresh Hybrid” (2008)

“The Wedding” (1994)

“Walking on Eggshells” (1997)

“Winter” (2018)

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Build Your Own Bismuth Crystals With Nervous System’s Miniature Geometric Puzzles

All images © Nervous System

Among the Earth’s metallic elements, bismuth is one of the most beguiling. Rarely encountered in nature, it can be synthesized for a wide variety of uses in medicine, cosmetics, and casting for things like printing type. When the material forms into hopper crystals—a stair-stepped pattern with a loosely conical shape—the oxide film on its surface interacts with light to produce astonishing iridescent colors. These patterns provide the basis of the latest miniature geometric puzzles by Nervous System (previously).

Each plywood jigsaw is about nine square inches and contains 157 pieces, which are cut in a matrix to mirror bismuth’s crystalline network. And like most of the studio’s designs, each puzzle contains a playful whimsy piece. Get yours from Nervous System.

 

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A Heartfelt Stop-Motion Animation for Apple Reminds Us to Be Kind This Holiday Season

Karma comes quickly for the Scrooge-esque character in Anna Mantzaris’ “Fuzzy Feelings,” a touching stop-motion animation about loneliness and compassion. A holiday ad for Apple that’s set to George Harrison’s “Isn’t It a Pity,” the short film features the Swedish animator’s signature felted cast (previously), particularly a gruff, selfish man who steals change from a charity and experiences fast retribution. As we soon learn, though, that character mirrors the curmudgeonly boss of a young woman, who’s created the fictional scenes to take imagined revenge on her superior. The story turns heartwarming when the woman realizes that her boss is alone for the holidays and uses her animated characters to remedy the problem.

Peek into Mantzaris’ process in the behind-the-scenes video below, and check out our conversation with the animator about her love for humor. (via Creative Boom)

 

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Fleshy Gills and Spotted Caps Sprout from Ann Wood’s Lifelike Paper Mushrooms

All images © Ann Wood, shared with permission

You don’t need to head out to the forest to find plump morels or chanterelles. After years of cultivating a robust collection of paper flowers and produce, artist Ann Wood (previously) has turned her focus to fungi, sprouting myriad specimens within her Minneapolis studio. White-spotted red caps of the fly agaric mushroom, plum-colored mushrooms with thick, fleshy gills, and bright yellow spores spring from patches of moss and dried leaves or rest on a platter as if ready to eat.

Wood has a background in painting and wood sculpting, although she began working with paper exclusively eight years ago. She’s since crafted more than 300 lifelike renditions of flora and fauna. Each piece is the result of study and observation, and she grows many plants from seeds in her backyard, which then serve as models for her recreations. “Throughout the years, I’ve basically tried to cover as much of the natural world—butterflies, bees, various other insects, all kinds of flowers, branches, leaves, birds, bulbs with roots, and various types of root balls that are attached to garden plants,” she says.

The mushrooms shown here are life-size or larger, and Wood is particularly adept at capturing the fleshy gills that often hide underneath the cap, along with the fringed, peeling layers of the woody stems. “It’s my goal to create that magical feeling that you get by finding mushrooms out in nature. They are fragile and startling when you come across them. I hope my paper versions inspire that same emotion,” she says.

Explore more of the artist’s paper cultivars on her site and Instagram.

 

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Faith XLVII Engages Humanity’s Shadows Through the Delicate Interplay of Light and Dark

“A Study of Light and Shadow V.” All images © Faith XLVII, shared with permission

Artist Faith XLVII (previously) describes a recent body of work as “a kind of scratching into the chiaroscuro of our souls.” Titled Clair-Obscur, the collection comprises wax-crayon drawings, stitched-map tapestries, installations, videos, and Polaroids that reflect on the fundamental duality between light and dark. Invoking the Jungian notion of shadow selves—the idea that people repress what they don’t like to acknowledge—Faith XLVII conjures both nature’s cycles and social and political issues, including environmental degradation, tyrannical rule, and human rights violations.

Works include a triptych of the moon’s phases that progress from light to dark, along with renderings of the 2020 MV Wakashio oil spill off the coast of Mauritius and two teens boxing in front of a younger audience waiting their turn. This latter piece depicts “the ‘Colonia Dignidad’ compound in Chile in the 1970s which became a notorious cult center under the rule of Pinochet,” the artist says. Often simply titled “A Study of Light and Shadow,” the works investigate various interpretations of darkness from the physical to the metaphorical. Together, the pieces suggest that recognizing the realities, atrocities, and hardships some would rather conceal is an essential step in our collective healing.

After debuting earlier this year at the Musée des Beaux Arts in Nancy, France, Clair-Obscur will open on December 2 at Danysz Gallery in Paris. Faith XLVII is widely known for her murals and public works around the world, which you can find on Instagram.

 

“A Study of Light and Shadow X”

“A Study of Light and Shadow II”

Left: “A Study of Light and Shadow II.” Right: “A Study of Light and Shadow VI”

“A Study of Light and Shadow XI”

“Chaos Theory XXI”

Detail of “Chaos Theory XXI”

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Studio Ibbini Juxtaposes Negative Space and Botanical Filigree in New Laser-Cut Paper Works

All images © Studio Ibbini, shared with permission

Artist Julia Ibbini and computer scientist Stéphane Noyer of the Abu Dhabi-based Studio Ibbini (previously) continue to collaborate on intricately constructed works that fall at the intersection of art and mathematics. The duo creates vessels and flat pieces by layering laser-cut papers into complex structures replete with floral filigree and ornate patterning.

While many of their three-dimensional sculptures appear to twist upward in tight, perfectly aligned rows, the pair incorporates more negative space into their recent pieces, many of which seem to morph from architectural or ornamental motifs into wild, botanical growths. Ibbini tells Colossal that this requires finding a delicate balance between the frail material and the resulting form to maintain the work’s structural integrity. She explains the process:

In the pieces that seem to be fading away, hand-made drawings are turned into computational tree structures and density maps on which graph theory and probabilistic algorithms are applied. Through this, we are able to manipulate the geometry of the work so that it looks almost as though the details are slowly eroding into empty space in the final piece.

Studio Ibbini will show works with Long-Sharp Gallery at Art Basel Miami starting next week and in a group exhibition at Sharjah Art Museum from December 13 to January 21. Keep up with the duo’s latest sculptures on Instagram.

 

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In ‘Nature Mart,’ Geoff McFetridge Queries Human Responsibility and Connection Through Minimal Paintings

“Person Person” (2023), acrylic on canvas, 50 X 40 inches. All photos by Jessann Reece, courtesy of the artist and Cooper Cole, Toronto, shared with permission

Canadian artist Geoff McFetridge is known for his distinct aesthetic that privileges feeling over visuals, all conveyed through minimal shapes and clean lines. In his latest body of work titled Nature Mart, McFetridge takes on connection, empathy, fear, and exploitation as he explores what it means to be in a community.

Rendered in bold, flat panes of color, his acrylic paintings feature nondescript figures joining arms, hopping a fence, and haphazardly tucked head or foot first into a silhouette evocative of a Trojan horse. While some works, like “Group Hug,” portray people seamlessly joined as if fused together indefinitely, others show a separation as in the mirrored “Thruwall,” a piece that depicts two nearly identical figures approaching the wall that divides them. Many of the paintings ask what our responsibility as humans is to each other and the species we share this planet with, which McFetridge broaches through his unornamented visual language.

Nature Mart is on view through January 20 at Cooper Cole in Toronto. Find more from the artist on Instagram. (via Juxtapoz)

 

“Horse Brainz” (2023), acrylic on canvas, 30 x 26 inches

“Group Hug” (2023), acrylic on canvas, 30 x 36 inches

“Protected by Lion” (2023), acrylic on canvas, 50 X 40 inches

“Horse That Jack Built 2” (2023), acrylic on canvas, 40 x 50 inches

“Over Fence” (2023), acrylic on canvas, 50 X 50 inches

“Tennis!” (2023), acrylic on canvas, 50 x 40 inches

“Thruwall” (2023), acrylic on canvas, 40 x 40 inches

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