Elaborate Personas Spring to Life During Carnival in ‘We the Spirits’ by Jason Gardner

Pantalla, Xinzo de Limia, Galicia, Spain. All images © Jason Gardner, shared with permission

Between January and March in Christian communities around the world, incredible personas emerge for Carnival in the form of mythological creatures, folkloric emblems, and historical figures. Donning elaborate masks and costumes, people obscure their identities, indulge in abundant fare, and gather together in parades and street parties before Lent. In his forthcoming book, We the Spirits, photographer Jason Gardner explores the remarkable diversity of Carnival and its traditions. “‘Winter and spring; barren and fertile; life and death; beauty and ugliness; light and dark; ritual and reality; chaos and order—the annual Carnival is much more than a party and parade in the streets,” he says.

Gardner traveled to 15 countries to document the festivities, capturing vibrant portraits of local revelers in elaborate, handmade costumes. He says, “In a time of screens, computers and A.I. simulations, there’s a movement back to the analog and gritty experience of Carnival, back to tradition and to feeling something more primal, animal, and pagan.” The annual ritual, which traces its origins to ancient European festivals like the Greek Dionysian or Roman Saturnalia, is rooted in a subversion of hierarchies and social norms, releasing people from typical roles and obligations in a symbolic period of renewal, after which chaos is then restored to order.

We the Spirits will be released by GOST Books this month in the U.K., coinciding with the exhibition Costume and Masquerade: Photographs by Suzanne Jongmans and Jason Gardner at Stadhaus Ulm in Germany. The title will be released in the U.S. in February, and you can pre-order a copy now on GOST’s website. Follow along with Gardner’s work and travels on Instagram.

You might also enjoy Robert de la Torre’s photos of the Entroidos celebrations in Spain.

 

Arapides, Monastiraki, Greece

Augustus I, Sopotnia Mała, Poland

Hombre árbol (Tree Man), Silió (Cantabria), Spain

Geiss (Goat), Weisbach, Germany

Kürika (Hen), Markovci, Slovenia

Bonita, Sande, Galicia, Spain

Schnappviech / Wudele, Tramin (South Tyrol), Italy

Ta Terjasti (The Thread Men), Cerkno, Slovenia

Botarga Arbancón, Guadalajara (Castile-La Mancha), Spain

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Design Platform Modyfi Introduces Playful and Innovative Real-Time Animation Editing

If you’re looking for a new way to electrify your social media channels, explore dizzying generative animation tools to enhance your art practice, or have a tight deadline for a campaign that needs a mind-melting visual effect, there’s a new graphics tool to add to your arsenal – and you don’t even need to learn to code.

Modyfi is a brand new world class design platform based entirely in your web browser that incorporates intuitive vector tooling, team collaboration, AI-driven art direction, and now motion graphics. Best of all, it’s totally free.

Simply launch Modyfi and without writing a single line of code, you can experiment with a range of modifiers, tools, and helpful tutorials that send you on a playful path of serendipitous creativity. While myriad animation tools are currently available for hardcore designers and programmers, Modyfi demolishes the barrier to entry to create an accessible and intuitive platform where eye-popping visual effects are rendered in real-time right in your browser.

 

Piers Cowburn, for Modyfi

We invited composer and multimedia artist Simon Alexander-Adams to try Modyfi to create some of the pieces seen here.

“I can see this as being really valuable for somebody who doesn’t have a coding background,” Alexander-Adams shares. Using native tools like pixel sorting and heat shrink, he spent a week experimenting and generating new ideas. “There are a lot of features that, as somebody who uses this kind of tech professionally a lot, I really appreciate that this [tool or feature set] has exposed,” allowing for a more powerful and experimental approach to graphics editing only accessible with significant time and training until now.

 

Simon Alexander-Adams, for Modyfi

Of particular note is the release of several new motion-editing tools available in Modyfi today. Artists and designers can now manipulate compositions, modifiers, and parameters, and the animation will update in real time, an editing process more familiar to audio engineers, where all elements of a piece are editable at any time.

Modyfi co-founder Piers Cowburn shares that he enjoys endlessly experimenting with many of the platforms’ tools that are ripe for serendipity and accidental discovery. “Using the app now, the piece of motion design I end up with after just a 20-minute design session is often wildly different than the idea I went in with. And always better.” He emphasizes how easy it is to quickly and easily create rapid iterations around a single idea, while a new path of innovation waits around every corner.

 

You can begin exploring Modyfi yourself right in your web browser, totally free, or follow them on Instagram.

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 Design Platform Modyfi Introduces Playful and Innovative Real-Time Animation Editing appeared first on Colossal.

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The Artists of ‘PULP’ Fold, Emboss, and Quill Their Way Through the Possibilities of Paper

James Lake. All images © the artists, courtesy of MAKE Southwest

Strips of cardboard, papier-mâché, and precision folding are just a few of the techniques artists employ as they explore of the endless potential of paper. Whether using found pages of magazines and books, intricately folding single sheets into detailed figures, or designing unique wearable pieces, artists are constantly finding original ways to use the humble material.

Kicking off next month at MAKE Southwest, a group exhibition titled PULP celebrates the possibilities of the medium in all its forms, from quilled flowers to figurative sculptures to playful miniatures. Collaboratively curated by the Paper Artist Collective and GF Smith, PULP presents the work of more than two dozen international artists, including several we’ve shared here on Colossal over the years, like Layla May Arthur, Daphne Lee, Juho Könkkölä, Kate Kato, and more.

PULP opens on January 20 and runs through April 13 in the town of Bovey Tracey, on the edge of Dartmoor. If you’re in the area, you can plan your visit and learn more via MAKE Southwest’s website.

 

Daphne Lee

Emma Boyes

Tina Kraus

Rosa Yoo

Kate Kato

Left: Samantha Quinn. Right: Dail Behennah

Kate Hipkiss

Jeremy May

Monique Martin

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 The Artists of ‘PULP’ Fold, Emboss, and Quill Their Way Through the Possibilities of Paper appeared first on Colossal.

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Dan Lam Blurs the Lines Between the Alluring and Grotesque in ‘Guttation’

“Replicate.” All images © Dan Lam, shared with permission

Guttation is a botanical process that occurs when fungi or plants like grasses and ferns secrete sap from their pores. Small droplets of dew will emerge and then hang from fronds or leaves to help relieve the specimen of too much liquid accumulating in its roots.

Dallas-based artist Dan Lam evokes this vital act in an upcoming solo show at Hashimoto Contemporary in New York. Guttation comprises more than 60 of Lam’s signature drippy sculptures that take a turn toward the grotesque in comparison to previous bodies of work. Titled with biological names like “Gall,” “Gland,” and “Stomata,” the technicolor pieces vacillate between the unequivocally synthetic materials—resin, polyurethane, foam, and acrylic—and their gurgling, oozing forms.

While small, clear droplets cover some of the sculptures, others feature more mottled surfaces that veer toward revulsion. Thick, translucent glaze cloaks speckled works like “Stomata” and “Bark,” capturing her fascination with nature’s bizarre, unruly qualities and the potentially strange results of evolution and survival.

Guttation runs from December 16 to January 6. Find more of Lam’s work on her site and Instagram.

 

“Gall”

“Bulb”

“Stomata”

“Bark”

“Concentration”

“Fluid”

“Membrane”

“Pressure”

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 Dan Lam Blurs the Lines Between the Alluring and Grotesque in ‘Guttation’ appeared first on Colossal.

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Take an Immersive Journey Through an Ancient Rainforest’s Mycelial Network in ‘Fungi: Web of Life’

“Everywhere you look, there are stories unfolding around fungi, connecting all life in the forest. But of all the fungal species on Earth, we’ve only described about five percent,” says biologist Merlin Sheldrake (previously) in the trailer for the visually stunning, immersive new film Fungi: Web of Life.

Narrated by Björk, and produced by K2 Studios, the movie follows Sheldrake—who has devoted his career to the remarkable and mysterious world of mycelium and mushrooms—as he embarks on a journey through the ancient Tarkine rainforest of Tasmania. Timelapse cinematography reveals up-close details of rarely seen fungal phenomena, from the dispersion of spores to vast subterranean networks known fondly as the “wood wide web.”

 

All images © ‘Fungi: Web of Life’

The documentary comes face-to-face with the reality of habitat loss due to deforestation and the climate crisis. “We’re burning the library—a library of different ways to rise to the challenge of living,” Sheldrake warns. He visits scientists and designers at the forefront of their fields, discovering never-before-seen species and learning from mycelium to create new, sustainable products and environmental solutions.

Fungi: Web of Life is currently showing in five theaters across North America, including IMAX Victoria at the Royal B.C. Museum in Vancouver, with numerous releases scheduled across the U.S. and the U.K. next year. Find a screening near you and learn more on the film’s website.

Sheldrake also authored the bestselling book Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds. You might also enjoy the astonishing mycological photography of Barbora Bartokova in the Czech Republic or collaborative duo Danny Newman and Roo Vandegrift in Ecuador.

 

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 Take an Immersive Journey Through an Ancient Rainforest’s Mycelial Network in ‘Fungi: Web of Life’ appeared first on Colossal.

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Jean Jullien Designs a Cheery Whale Sculpture with a Functional Blowhole

All images courtesy of Case Studyo

French artist Jean Jullien (previously) has teamed up with Case Studyo to create a jolly sculpture titled “La Baleine,” a.k.a. “The Whale.” With a functional blowhole that can hold pencils, plants, or flowers, the porcelain vessel features Jullien’s signature chunky line drawings. The wide, toothy grin adds a sense of optimism and goodwill, while the artist likens the blowhole to “an emblem of exhaling and releasing creative energy.”

“La Baleine” is available in an edition of 500 from Case Studyo. Find more from Jullien on Instagram. (via Hypebeast)

 

 

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Colossal Releases Two New Limited-Edition Prints with Jon Ching

“Sanguines.” All images © Jon Ching, shared with permission

We’re thrilled to announce our next limited-edition print release with Jon Ching (previously). Longtime Colossal readers will recognize Ching’s fantastic hybrids, which seamlessly meld flora and fauna into otherworldly compositions. In “Sanguines,” blush-colored petals and feathers merge into a delicately layered crest, while “Adaptive Radiation” depicts two fluffy rabbits wearing a crown of pink gladiolus.

Both giclée prints are signed and numbered and available in editions of 40 from the Colossal Shop.

 

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 Colossal Releases Two New Limited-Edition Prints with Jon Ching appeared first on Colossal.

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