Colossal Members Have Funded 75 Art Projects in K-12 Classrooms through DonorsChoose

Illustration by Katie Lukes

The Colossal community hit an exciting milestone this week: thanks to our ever-generous Members, we funded our 75th classroom through DonorsChoose.

A portion of all Colossal Membership fees are allocated to K-12 art education, and so far, we’ve collectively donated $8,090 to classrooms in need. In celebration of the occasion, we’re sharing some feedback from educators whose students have directly benefited from the support.

Thank you for your donations to this project to help our students engage in hands-on learning and use their creativity. During the pandemic, they missed these projects and the joy of working with their peers. As they are creating, they are reconnecting with their peers and developing those social skills that are crucial to their success as productive citizens. Not all students thrive academically. These projects will allow my students to express themselves in other ways. —Mrs. Lindsey, Carver Elementary School

A heartfelt thank you for funding the art therapy supplies for our school’s social work services. Your generosity will enable us to provide a creative and healing outlet for our students. Your support means the world to us and our students. —Ms. Roberts, Pilsen Community Academy

It is so amazing to be in a community that supports the arts as much as you do! Because of your generosity, year after year, we can continue to expand and experiment with new materials, which makes it exciting for me and the kids! Thank you so much for your support. —Mrs. MacBeth, Amundsen High School

You can find out more about the specific projects funded on DonorsChoose, and join us by becoming a Colossal Member.

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 Members Have Funded 75 Art Projects in K-12 Classrooms through DonorsChoose appeared first on Colossal.

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In Delicate Detail, Ester Magnusson Meitculously Fashions a Human Skull From Lace

All images © Ester Magnusson, shared with permission

“I’m obsessed with lace,” says Swedish fiber and textile artist Ester Magnusson, who loves to deep-dive into the history of garment design. As she prepared her portfolio for a residency focused solely on bobbin lace, she conceived of the idea of a human skull made entirely from the dainty fabric. “Once you express an interest in lace, people come out of the woodworks to give you their grandma’s old collection, so I had a lot of thrifted and gifted material to work with,” she says.

The resulting piece is titled “Skör,” which is pronounced like “sure” and translates to English from Swedish meaning “fragile.” Adjacent to Magnusson’s passion for textiles is a curiosity about wordplay, especially puns. “In Swedish, the words for ‘a piece of weaving’ and ‘tissue (anatomical)’ are both Vävnad, so I was coming up with ideas for a very punny fantasy exhibition when I thought of the concept,” the artist says.

Made of a mix of cotton and linen lace, “Skör” is assembled using cotton thread and wood glue. Tiny stitches connect various strips and shapes, but felt that she needed to add something she had created herself. “I had a feeling that I was just working with other people’s materials, that the piece wasn’t quite mine… so I made the teeth by hand,” she says, noting that she crocheted the details in a scallop pattern using a tiny metal hook. Once the work was complete, the artist used wood glue as a substitute for traditional starching agents like cornflour or sugar glue.

Interested in sustainable production, Magnusson continues to work in the garment industry and has recently been experimenting with a tapestry crochet variation of “Skör” that merges the concepts of pixel art, anatomical studies, and sweaters. Follow her on Instagram for updates.

 

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Vibrant Digital Illustrations by Muhammed Sajid Evoke Memories of the Artist’s Hometown

All images © Muhammed Sajid, shared with permission

“The two things I love the most are observing people and playing with colours,” says Bangalore, India-based artist Muhammed Sajid, whose vivid digital illustrations highlight personalities, garments, and visual culture inspired by his home state of Kerala. Ornate fabrics and objects surround figures who gaze directly at the viewer or interact with flora and fauna, and symbolic references to vernacular architecture and art fill each vibrant composition.

Sajid was inspired to start making portraits while he was in college, and over time, he honed his interest in portraying people and their surroundings. Initially, he worked in watercolor and poster paints, but found it difficult to achieve the saturated hues he was drawn to. “In the digital era, things are entirely different, and I started using different types of colours,” he says, exploring the full spectrum and building bold contrasts.

In his Folks from Kerala series, Sajid draws from memories and renders subjects who are reminiscent of people he would see around his childhood town. “Some of the pieces that I had done in that series show people who are familiar folks and faces from the village,” he says. “I felt that no one gave much attention to how simple and beautiful their lives were.” He continues to build on these initial explorations, combining elements of pop culture, fashion, and landscape.

Later this year, Sajid will show a couple of new pieces with Galerie Kurokama in Paris, which focuses on contemporary Asian art. Find more of the artsit’s work on Behance and 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 Vibrant Digital Illustrations by Muhammed Sajid Evoke Memories of the Artist’s Hometown appeared first on Colossal.

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Ryan Villamael’s Cascading Floral Sculptures Reconsider Maps and Identity

“Locus Amoenus.” All images courtesy of Silverlens, Manila/New York, shared with permission

Gathered in bunches and trailing like vines, Ryan Villamael’s paper-cut sculptures cascade through niches of interiors, history, and identity. Utilizing maps to create overgrowths of leaves, the artist addresses complex relationships between cartography and culture.

Based in Los Baños, Laguna, in the Philippines, Villamael focuses his practice on tangled narratives within himself and the country. Because his father had to leave home as an overseas worker, the young artist grew up without his presence. This physical disconnect was challenging and catalyzed Villamael’s fascination with cartography. He explains, “Looking at maps was my way of connecting with him, of tracing the paths he might have traveled.”

 

“Locus Amoenus” at Ateneo Art Gallery, Manila

This fixation has carefully cultivated itself ever since, as the artist sees the geographic representations as a way to uncover familial paths and collective memory. However, at odds with this sentiment of reclaiming personal history, Villamael also alludes to the presence of authoritative geopolitical ambitions that perpetuate partial truths. He tells Colossal:

So much of my work, I realize in hindsight, is about a kind of mourning. To be Filipino, I feel, is to be constantly in mourning—for the heritage that was taken from our nation by colonialism, for the memories we discard so systematically as a way of survival, for the historic structures in Manila that are constantly demolished… That does something to a nation’s psyche, and it’s something I feel deeply.

Such longing for ancestral truth beyond the stain of colonialism is evident in the artist’s work, as meticulous cutting, folding, overlapping, and puncturing alters the printed surfaces. Originally working with paper out of financial necessity, the humble material eventually became Villamael’s avenue for the tactile transformation and reclamation of cartographic records.

From the expansive nature of the material to the concept of stitching together ideas of home, the nuances of breadth and space guide his work. Quelled inside glass cloches and proliferating across gallery ceilings, floral motifs and sinuous vines carry a consuming desire for the recapitulation of history.

Villamael has two shows opening this month: a solo exhibit at Silverlens Gallery in Manila and an installation at the Esplanade in Singapore. Follow his Instagram to keep up with his work.

 

Detail of “Locus Amoenus”

Detail of “Locus Amoenus”

Detail of “Locus Amoenus”

“Locus Amoenus” at Ateneo Art Gallery, Manila

Left: “Pulô series X.” Right: “Pulô series IX”

“Pulô series III”

Left: From “Kadō Series.” Right: detail of “Kadō Series 2”

“Kadō, Series 1”

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New York City Ballet Art Series Presents David Michalek

“SlowDancing/NYCB,” David Michalek’s installation for New York City Ballet’s 2024 Art Series, features hyper-slow-moving images of current NYCB dancers performing iconic moments from the company’s repertory. Images courtesy of David Michalek

David Michalek is an American visual artist and director whose work is closely tied to an interest in the contemporary person, which he explores through live performance, filmmaking, photography, drawing, installation, relational aesthetics, and public projects. He often concentrates on carefully staged marginal moments that develop density with minimal action. Examining notions of durational and rhythmic time, his works aim to engage and generate intimate yet open-ended narratives.

Michalek’s installation for New York City Ballet’s 2024 Art Series, “SlowDancing/NYCB,” is a deep dive into the distinctive archive and style of a single ballet company that has become one of the most important artistic engines, and creative mainstays, of New York’s cultural fabric. Operating in a realm between action and image, animation and immobility, theater and painting, the installation features hyper-slow-moving images of 20 of NYCB’s current dancers performing iconic moments from the company’s unparalleled repertory in celebration of its 75th Anniversary Season.

Michalek’s work will be on view at three special New York City Ballet Art Series performances on February 3, 8, and 23. Tickets are $40.

To learn more and purchase tickets, visit nycballet.com/artseries.

 

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Curious Mutations and Scenarios Occupy Martin Jarrie’s Stylized Acrylic Illustrations

“Bestioles.” All images © Martin Jarrie, shared with permission

Elephants with blue scales and pipe-like trunks, a woman sporting an enormous bouffant filled with birds, and a farmer grasping a tree with roots evocative of veins or intestines are just a few of the otherworldly characters that populate Martin Jarrie’s illustrations.

The French artist is drawn to mutations and curious scenarios, skewing bodily proportions or melding two creatures into strange hybrids. “What interests me most is giving birth to imaginary beings, animals or humans, under my pencil or my brush,” he shares. “I was very marked in my adolescence and youth by the discovery of surrealism, from Giorgio de Chirico to Magritte via Marcel Duchamp.”

Whether working on a commission or a personal project, Jarrie begins with a minimal sketch before choosing a substrate—paper, canvas, or sometimes wooden produce crates—for his acrylic works. “I never paint on a white background, but it is always already smeared with paint (remnants of palette, bottoms of tubes, etc…),” he notes, which is also evident in the streaks and blotches lining the perimeters of his works.

 

“Horticulteur”

But sometimes an initial drawing doesn’t translate to a larger illustration. Jarrie has amassed a collection of sketchbooks from the past three decades, which he references when he needs inspiration. He explains:

There are a lot of failures, unfinished drawings… When I get stuck, I consult them and sometimes find solutions in drawings that I found unsatisfactory but which suddenly open up new avenues for me. And then always in case of blockage… I leaf through the books in my library, art books, exhibition catalogs, books on nature, animals, sky charts, old sea charts, etc…

The resulting works are filled with unexpected oddities and textured details, which the artist describes as direct translations of an idea or thought into “a sensation…The pleasure of drawing is to let yourself be surprised,” he says. “Something escapes.”

Jarrie’s most recent commissions include a seasonal label design for Staple Gin, along with a book project for Vista Alegre. Find much more of his work on Instagram.

 

“Tête +oiseaux”

“Main”

“Les 2 géants”

“Femme aux chiens”

“Nid”

“Fenouil”

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 Curious Mutations and Scenarios Occupy Martin Jarrie’s Stylized Acrylic Illustrations appeared first on Colossal.

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Pokémon and Japanese Craft Traditions Unite in a Fantastic Exhibition of 70+ Works

Taiichiro Yoshida, “Jolteon.” All images courtesy of Japan House Los Angeles, shared with permission

Two of Japan’s major cultural contributions converge in POKÉMON X KOGEI | Playful Encounters of Pokémon and Japanese Craft. On view at Japan House Los Angeles, the exhibition showcases more than 70 sculptures and installations that recreate the fantastical animated characters from Squirtle to Pikachu in ceramic, metal, fiber, and more.

Included are works by several artists featured on Colossal, including a menagerie of intricately layered creatures by Taiichiro Yoshida and Keiko Masumoto’s whimsical vessels in which heads and tails emerge from pots and plates. Similar to the natural materials used in Japanese craft like earth, water, and fire, the characters within the popular franchise are categorized by element, drawing another connection between the two.

POKÉMON X KOGEI is organized by the National Crafts Museum in Kanazawa and is on view in Los Angeles through January 7.

 

Keiko Masumoto, “Vulpix Shigaraki Jar”

Kasumi Ueba, from left, “Grookey with Arabesque Pattern,” “Scorbunny with Flame Pattern,” and “Sobble with Water Pattern”

Taiichiro Yoshida, “Eevee”

Taiichiro Yoshida, detail of “Flareon”

Taiichiro Yoshida, “Flareon” and “Jolteon”

Sadamasa Imai, “Squirtle”

Keiko Masumoto, “Piplup Underglazed Plate”

Reiko Sudo, “Pikachu’s Adventures in a Forest”

Reiko Sudo, detail of “Pikachu’s Adventures in a Forest”

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 Pokémon and Japanese Craft Traditions Unite in a Fantastic Exhibition of 70+ Works appeared first on Colossal.

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