Illustration

Introspective Figures Navigate Surreal Worlds in Simón Prades’ Illustrations

Stories come to life on the page and introspective figures explore inner worlds in the dreamlike illustrations of Simón Prades (previously). His surreal scenes often feature silhouettes of people peering into the unknown, whether toward a distant memory, the wilderness, or the future. Rendered in deep hues with an emphasis on the effects of light and contrast, he draws attention to human nature and universal, emotional experiences of hope, nostalgia, and wonder.

Prades has worked as a freelance illustrator for more than ten years, finding visual language to express ideas in editorial and book publishing, film, music, and advertising. His clients have included The New York Times, Penguin Random House, Scientific American, and many more. “While I still love solving problems for clients, I must say that the urge to work on more personal projects has been growing and might manifest in a book or something like that soon,” he tells Colossal.

Prades is looking forward to a project next year that merges illustration with his other passion, cycling. During a 10-day tour through the Pyrenees, he plans to capture the experience in his sketchbook. Explore more of his work on his website and Behance, and follow updates on Instagram.

 

Photography

Søren Solkær’s Enigmatic Photographs Capture Flocks of Starlings in Evening Skies

Since 2017, Danish photographer Søren Solkær has traveled Europe in search of the mesmerizing phenomenon of starling murmurations. Occurring before dusk during spring and autumn, cool weather and an instinct for safety gathers thousands of the black songbirds into enormous, undulating clouds. Solkær captures these enigmatic evening shows in his ongoing series Black Sun (previously), and a survey of these works opens at the National Nordic Museum in Seattle, Washington, next month.

The term “murmuration” is derived from starlings’ fluttering wings and flight calls, providing a distinct soundtrack to meadows and marshlands. Solkær remembers being fascinated by the birds as a child growing up in southern Denmark, where he would watch the creatures swoop through the sky near his home. The title Black Sun is derived from the Danish phrase “sort sol,” describing the way the aerial masses obscure the sun.

Coinciding with the exhibition, Solkær has just released a new monograph in the series titled Starling, documenting their movements in Ireland, Italy, Denmark, and The Netherlands. Starling is available for purchase now on Solkær’s website, and Black Sun will open December 9 and continue through March 10, 2024, in Seattle. Follow the photographer’s Instagram for more updates.

 

History

Over 25 Years of a Pioneering Collective’s History Comes Together in ‘Trailblazing Women Printmakers’

Working together from about 1941 to 1969 in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and almost entirely comprised of women block printers, the artists of the Folly Cove Designers comprised one of America’s longest-running collectives. The pioneering group produced hundreds of unique designs, and a new book by Elena M. Sarni from Princeton Architectural Press titled Trailblazing Women Printmakers: Virginia Lee Burton Demetrios and the The Folly Cove Designers details the group’s prolific history and extensive works.

Led by acclaimed children’s book author Virginia Lee Burton Demetrios, the collective functioned similarly to a medieval craft guild. Artists would convene regularly for classes on design and technique and also hone their skills individually, either at home or in the studio. Afterwards, jurors assessed their designs, and upon approval, the works proceeded to the printing stage.

Cut from linoleum and block-printed onto mainly fabric, each design tells a story. Members were constantly urged to draw inspiration from their surroundings, whether depicting a musical performance, the local college campus, or kitchen utensils and ingredients. Each artist shared personal narratives and familiar scenes. According to the Cape Ann Museum, which houses the largest collection of work by the Folly Cove Designers, Demetrios encouraged artists to “draw ‘what they knew’ and to sketch their subjects over and over again until they made them their own.” Each intricate print documented daily life, giving voice to women’s stories.

Find your copy of Trailblazing Women Printmakers on Bookshop.

 

Craft Design History

The Iconic ‘Silver Swan’ Automaton Gets a Well-Deserved Fluff of the Feathers

In the 250 years since its fabrication in the studio of jeweler and entrepreneur James Cox, the “Silver Swan” automaton has beguiled viewers. The mechanical sculpture continues to live up to its original purpose, designed as a crowd-puller to the artist’s workshop in 18th-century London, which also served as a small museum. Today, it is an iconic resident of the The Bowes Museum at Barnard Castle in County Durham, U.K.

Cox modeled the life-size creature on a female swan, incorporating 2,000 moving parts, including 139 crystal rods and 113 neck rings. A slew of delicate pieces are encased in chased, repoussé silver, operated by three clockwork mechanisms that control a music box, a pool of glass with swimming silver fish, and the complex movements of the swan’s head and neck. At the 1867 Paris International Exhibition, its large scale and hefty price tag of 50,000 francs—today, that would be well over $200,000—created a sensation. Five years later, the museum’s namesake, John Bowes, bought it in Paris for a tenth of that price and brought it home to the U.K.

In a video produced in 2021, a specialist team of conservators and curators painstakingly dismantled the sculpture to examine the condition of its mechanisms and create a plan for its preservation. This year, the swan is undergoing meticulous repairs and cleaning, and the museum anticipates that the work will be completed by the end of the year.

Cox also designed the well-known “Peacock Clock” for Catherine the Great, a treasure of the State Hermitage Museum in Russia. Learn more about the “Silver Swan” on The Bowes Museum’s website. (via The Kid Should See This)

 

Design

At a New Restaurant in South Vietnam, Dine Under a Dramatic Thatched Bamboo Canopy

A cascading bamboo lattice shelters diners at the new Keeng Seafood Restaurant in Long Thành, Vietnam, with a nod to the local ecology. Architecture studio BambuBuild designed an elegant hall with a thatched roof evocative of a ship’s prow, supported by columns reminiscent of nipa palms, a riverside plant common in south Vietnam.

The firm was tasked with designing a structure that would be both strong and built quickly. Thanks to a tensile strength comparable to steel and a compressive strength twice as high as concrete, the medium is sometimes called “iron bamboo.” Traditionally, a pole is used as a post, beam, or truss, but BambuBuild saw potential in a shape called a hyperbolic paraboloid, also known as a hypar or “saddle”—think of the shape of a Pringle chip. Not only does this produce graceful arches and curves, but it can carry a huge load, perfect for supporting a show-stopping canopy.

See more on BambuBuild’s website. (via Designboom)

 

  

Art Photography

Berndnaut Smilde Conjures Fleeting Nimbus Clouds as They Hover Indoors

For less than ten seconds, Berndnaut Smilde’s floating sculptures transform galleries, halls, and warehouses into uncanny spaces where indoors meets out. Puffy clouds made of smoke and water hang inside tiled interiors or industrial workshops for a brief time when they’re photographed by the artist’s collaborators. The ephemeral works are part of Smilde’s Nimbus series, ongoing for more than a decade. “I’m still fascinated by capturing a cloud. I never get bored by the process of how the appearance forms into a physical cloud, taking up space, reflecting light, and a specific moment,” he shares.

In recent years, the sculptures have become denser and larger, more imposing elements that haunt quiet spaces from Dubai to Paris to Washington, D.C. Depending on their location, the pieces take on varied meanings to explore questions of time, boundaries, and perception. Smilde explains:

The cloud is a great metaphor and it changes its context, its interpretation, with each space. The old chapel at the Hotel Maria Kapel art space in the Dutch town of Hoorn, where I made my first cloud, for example, emphasized the divine connotations, but in other environments, it could appear as an element escaped from a landscape painting, a thought, a heavenly place, a concealing element, or simply an in-between state. This fleeting aspect of the work is something I’ve embraced in my other artworks, as well. I’ve also learned not to always need to have full control over it and to accept change. A cloud isn’t durable, it changes, grows, and breaks apart.

Smilde’s work is included in a group show on view through March 17, 2024, at Museum Gegenstandsfreier Kunst in Otterndorf, Germany, and he’s currently creating a piece for a hotel in Amsterdam, where he’s based. Find more of his short-lived weather works on Instagram. (via Aesthetica Magazine)