cityscapes

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Photography

Expansive Photographs by RK Frame the Unexpected Beauty of Everyday Life Throughout Asia

Traveling from his home in Tokyo to cities and small villages across Asia, Ryosuke Kosuge is adept at spotting the textures and patterns that occupy local life, whether through the rocky formations surrounding Heaven’s Gate Mountain in Zhangjiajie, an array of birdcages created by a woman in Guizhou, or the wires crisscrossing a market in Nanning. His arresting images approach everyday moments from a place of curiosity and display the beauty and wonder inherent in both natural and urban environments. The photographer, who works as RK, tells Colossal that he chooses destinations based on the specific mood he hopes to convey, although sometimes those decisions are spurred by a personal desire to experience local customs and cuisine.

RK is also behind this book-filled series shot inside Tokyo’s Kadokawa Culture Museum. You can follow his travels on Instagram.

 

Art

Bold Brushstrokes Energize Abstract, Pixelated Landscapes by Artist Jason Anderson

Jason Anderson visualizes city skylines, swooping highway exchanges, and a range of urban landscapes through prismatic, impasto strokes of oil paint. The U.K.-based artist begins each painting with a black-and-white sketch before turning to the linen canvas and translating the lively works. In recent months, he’s incorporated more curved lines and saturated tones alongside the pastels he’s used previously, resulting in abstract scenes of horizons and city centers rendered through a mosaic of color.

“I relish the often frantic nature of mixing and arranging the paint in thick impressionistic daubs and submitting to a process that creates its own detail and form,” the artist says in a statement. “This forces me to be bold and decisive; it also produces a kaleidoscope of shape and tone (reminiscent of stained-glass) which portrays the ever-present movement and energy found in nature.”

Although all of Anderson’s works are currently sold out, you can follow updates on his commissions and new pieces on his site and view his finished paintings and sketches on Instagram.

 

Art

A Colorful Geometric Mural of a Cityscape Visualizes Humans’ Impact on Nature

Artist Vitaly Tsarenkov, who works under the moniker SY, depicts the threat of ecological catastrophe through a new mural featuring geometric flora, fauna, and objects typically found in bustling city centers. Created for the Urban Morphogenesis festival in Chelyabinsk, Russia, “Love of Nature” is a vertical rendering of the human impact on nature, with color-blocked trucks, road cones, and towering buildings near the top and a fire, flowers, and tufts of grass occupying space at the bottom.

Based in Saint Petersburg, Russia, Tsarenkov says the 50-meter-high mural conveys that each person has the agency to protect the planet’s resources. “It’s impossible to stop all harmful factories at once, but to make the first step towards the clean Earth is not difficult and within everybody’s power just by taking the trash away after recreation in nature,” he writes on Instagram.

 

Craft Design

Copenhagen’s Distinct Architecture Knit into Color-Blocked Urban Landscapes by Jake Henzler

Instead of writing or illustrating a journal to record his excursions, Sydney-based artist Jake Henzler knits colorful memories of urban landscapes into huge pieces of art. The artist goes by the name of “‘Boy Knits World”’ on Instagram and crafts quilt-like panels of urban spaces that he comes across whilst traveling. 

Henzler lived in Copenhagen for a year, and during that time, he created an original hand-knitted blanket panel called “‘Copenhagen Building Blocks.” The large work celebrates the traditional, world-recognized architecture of Denmark’s capital. As a whole, the piece is made up of a series of six grid-like patterns, which Henzler has sewn together to form a larger piece. Each of the architectural blocks is named after a different district in the city and features Nørrebro Studios, Østerbro Studios, Hellerup Apartments, Nyhavn Hotel, Nørreport Offices, and Frederiksberg Apartments. 

In Copenhagen, much of the traditional architecture’s brick and woodwork is painted, and the diversity of colors throughout the city creates a strong sense of place. This architectural distinctiveness is illustrated throughout Henzler’s work, and each block comprises the traditional colors, framework, and patterns featured throughout the city’s vibrant districts.

To view more of Henzler’s work, visit his Instagram, and to buy the “Copenhagen Building Block” pattern, visit his Ravelry page. (via Lustik)

Photography

Take an Eerie Walk Through the Empty Streets of Amsterdam, San Francisco, and New York City

With one-third of the world’s population currently under some level of quarantine, the streets of major cities like Amsterdam, New York City, and San Francisco are an unusual and unsettling sight. Film director and cinematographer Jean Counet, who shot “Meanwhile in Amsterdam,” shows the capital city almost entirely deserted. Public transit is empty and a four-minute walk reveals less than a dozen passersby.

Counet tells Colossal that “Meanwhile in Amsterdam” came together like any other film, except that “this time there was no director, and no plan,” he says. “We walked through the old city centre of Amsterdam between 8:30 (and) 13:30 which is normally teemed by walking people and bicycles. What we witnessed felt like a dream. Sometimes beautiful and mesmerizing, sometimes scary and worrying.”

In a similarly bizarre look at San Francisco, stop lights cycle from green to red with no cars passing through and businesses are boarded up. One with a psychedelic facade even has signs that read “We will survive” and “We will get by,” a hopeful gesture derived from the city’s musical legends that directly contrasts the nailed plywood covering the windows.

To see how the global pandemic is affecting public life in New York City and Rotterdam, check out the videos below. (via Kottke)

Photography

Towering Skyscrapers Reflect New York City’s Density in Navid Baraty’s Photographs

Utilizing the reflections on soaring buildings, Seattle-based photographer Navid Baraty (previously) frames New York City in sections of just a few blocks. Although the traffic-packed streets and countless windows on high-rises can be seen from the ground, Baraty’s aerial shots in his ongoing Hidden City II series provide a distinct look at the area’s density and compactedness. “Most of our perceptions of cities involve us walking the busy streets and staring up at the towering skyscrapers above,” he writes. “With my series, I wanted to offer an altered and at times almost surreal perspective on the familiar streets that us city-dwellers drive and walk on each day.”

Baraty tells Colossal that his cityscapes often remind him of scenes from Interstellar or Inception. They “capture reflections of these hidden realities that exist high above the streets below. I couldn’t believe the first time I saw how much of a city can be seen reflected along the sides of skyscrapers from on high. It really felt as though I’d discovered some sort of hidden dimension,” he said. To keep up with Baraty’s perspective-altering photographs, head to Instagram and Behance.