The Top Ten Colossal Stories Readers Loved Most in 2023

Image © Laurent Ballesta

As we approach the end of 2023, we’re revisiting some of the top stories we wrote about this year. From enormous kinetic beach creatures to a trove of salvaged historic photographs, our readers’ most-loved projects illustrate a diverse array of mediums, ideas, and groundbreaking discoveries.

 

Image © Theo Jansen

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

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

 

Photo by Diego Lourenço Gurgel, courtesy of Vinicius Peripato

More Than 10,000 Indigenous Earthworks Hidden in the Amazon Reveal Human Connections to the Forest Over Millennia

Researchers Vinicius Peripato and Luiz Aragão of Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research led surveys that identified 24 previously undocumented earthworks in the Amazon basin, with results suggesting that between 10,000 and 24,000 sites remain undiscovered across Amazonia’s 2.59 million square miles.

 

Image courtesy of Terri Cappucci

A Photo Preservationist Saved a Trove of 4,000 Glass Plate Negatives That Nearly Went Into the Trash

In 2019, Terri Cappucci, a photographer and preservationist based in Massachusetts, stumbled upon a veritable treasure trove of 4,000 glass plates spanning the 1860s to the 1930s that had been destined for the trash.

 

Photo by Shiinoki Shunsuke / AMKK. Image © Azuma Makoto

Azuma Makoto’s Temporary Sculptures Freeze Hundreds of Flowers on a Snow-Coated Lake

On a frozen lake in the Notsuke Peninsula, a tendril of land that juts out from Hokkaido’s east coast, acclaimed floral artist Azuma Makoto has constructed the third botanical sculpture in an ongoing series called Frozen Flowers.

 

Image courtesy of Robert van Embricqs

A Wooden Artwork Miraculously Unfurls into a Functional Desk Designed by Robert van Embricqs

The surge in remote work during the last few years prompted Amsterdam-based designer Robert van Embricqs to rethink how conventional desks would impact a home’s atmosphere.

 

Image © Laurent Ballesta

Laurent Ballesta’s Luminous Photographs Reveal the Astounding Diversity of Ocean Life

The earth’s oceans are mindbogglingly expansive, and less than 20 percent has been mapped, explored, or seen by humans. For Laurent Ballesta, the underwater world provides an endless stream of remarkable aquatic personalities.

 

Image © the artist, courtesy of Galleria Continua

In His Largest LEGO Work To Date, Ai Weiwei Recreates One of Claude Monet’s Most Famous Paintings

Ai Weiwei challenges our perceptions of natural beauty and reality, replacing brush strokes with plastic bricks redolent of digital pixels, using a more saturated color palette, and embedding shadows that evoke a hint of unease.

 

Image © Anthimos Ntagkas

Photos of Everyday Activities Reveal the Humor of Perspective and Serendipitous Alignments

One of the joys of street photography is that it reveals just how often unexpected, serendipitous juxtapositions are happening around us. Whether in Tel Aviv, New York, or Athens, Anthimos Ntagkas has a keen eye for these everyday alignments as he captures strange and amusing sights during his travels.

 

“Creación de las aves (Creation of the Birds)” (1957), Museo de Arte Moderno, INBAL/Secretaría de Cultura. Photo by Rodrigo Chapa. © 2023 Remedios Varo, Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VEGAP, Madrid, courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago

A Major Exhibition Materializes Surrealist Artist Remedios Varo’s Alchemical Visions

More than 60 of Remedios Varo’s paintings, sketches, and sculptures went on view at a U.S. museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, for the first time in 23 years. The enchanting works evidence the artist’s esoteric affinities and are rife with unexpected magic.

 

Image © Mikko Lagerstedt

Mikko Lagerstedt Photographs the Quiet Grandeur of Snowy Nordic Landscapes

Underneath soft light from the moon or the early morning sun, Finnish photographer Mikko Lagerstedt captures the quiet magic and mystery of Nordic landscapes.

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 Top Ten Colossal Stories Readers Loved Most in 2023 appeared first on Colossal.

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In Luke Stephenson’s Bold Portraits of Show Birds, the Personality Is in the Plumage

“Hawfinch #1” (2019). All images © Luke Stephenson, licensed

From charming robins and spritely blackbirds to a canary with a suave, natural bowl cut, Luke Stephenson’s portraits capture the fine feathers and downy details of exquisite show birds (previously). Using a customized, portable box with a perch inside, the artist captures each species’ distinctive personality and plumage in front of a variety of colored backgrounds.

For more than a decade, Stephenson traveled across the U.K. and the Netherlands to make the portraits, and over time, he experimented with ways to make the birds more comfortable and achieve the most compelling compositions. “I keep adapting (the boxes) to work better; the latest version allows me to spin the perch with out putting my hand in the box and bothering the birds,” he tells Colossal.

Stephenson recently compiled a second volume of his popular book An Incomplete Dictionary of Show Birds, including all of the images that appeared in the first volume, plus 115 never-before-published portraits. Now based in Stockholm, he is currently working on a project focused on Swedish traditions.

If you’re in California, you can spot a few of Stephenson’s birds in Still Life, a three-person show at Joseph Bellows Gallery in La Jolla, through February 10. Find more on the artist’s website, and follow him on Instagram for updates.

 

“Canary #13 (Gloster Corona, cock)” (2017)

Left: “Budgie #10” (2019). Right: “Japanese Thrush #1 (cock)” (2021)

“Agate Starling (hen) #1” (2019)

Left: Canary #10 (Yorkshire yellow)” (2017). Right: “Blackbird #1 (cock)” (2019)

“Bramble Finch #1 (cock)” (2017)

“European Robin #1” (2018)

Left: “Golden Song Sparrow #1 (cock)” (2018). Right: “Timor Sparrow #1” (2018)

“Linnet #1” (2017)

“Pagoda Starling #1” (2019)

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Joshua Smith Serves Up Slices of Main Street in Meticulously Detailed Miniature Buildings

Photos by Andrew Beveridge/ASBCreative. All images © Joshua Smith, shared with permission

Wheatpasted posters, spraypainted tags, and signs with missing letters are just a few of the hyperrealistic details on the facades of Joshua Smith’s extraordinary miniatures. “My work focuses on often neglected and abandoned buildings, which more often than not are covered in graffiti, rust, and grime,” the Adelaide, South Australia-based artist tells Colossal. Rendering corner stores, photo booths, and anonymous entryways with precision, he adds layers of lifelike details both inside and out, from stacks of boxes to checkout counters to racks of merchandise.

For his source imagery, Smith draws from visits around the U.S. and abroad, plus images he finds on Google Street View. Thanks to a popular Instagram account, if he can’t get to a particular location in person, sometimes his followers help out by visiting specific sites and snapping photos for reference. “I then break it down into different components, such as walls, windows, the ground, and other details,” he says. “Once the basic shape of the building has been made, I then apply the paint, signage, graffiti, and finally the weathering.” Using a variety of techniques, from 3D modeling to scratch-building with styrene, he creates every element himself.

Smith recently co-curated the group exhibition Miniature Worlds at the Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery in Launceston, Tasmania, which continues through February 4. He will also exhibit as part of a group show next year with Outré Gallery in Melbourne, emphasizing signage and type. Small sculptures and accessories are often available in the artist’s online shop.

 

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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

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 Elaborate Personas Spring to Life During Carnival in ‘We the Spirits’ by Jason Gardner appeared first on Colossal.

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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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