clay

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Animation

A Mysterious Presence in the Forest Grapples with Change in Guldies’s Stop-Motion Animation ‘MITOSIS’

In his latest stop-motion animation, Alexander Unger, who works as Guldies (previously), presents an idiosyncratic tale set in a nighttime forest. “MITOSIS” follows the transformation of a pine cone into an anthropomorphized log, which in turn morphs into timber, crates, and an idyllic cabin in the woods. Yet an eccentric presence lurks amongst the trees that, frustrated by the changes, confronts their new neighbor and inadvertently prompt the entire cycle to begin again.

“MITOSIS” takes inspiration from the biological process by which a cell produces two identical nuclei in preparation for cell division. It took Unger one year to complete the work, which incorporates 4,425 individual photos. Find more of Guldies’s work on Instagram and YouTube.

 

Craft Food

Tiny Trays Serve Up Delicious Morsels in Miniature Spreads by Mahnaz Miryani

Tehran-based artist Mahnaz Miryani has been fascinated by puzzles since she was a child. In her miniature culinary arrangements, she channels a love for fitting little pieces together into satisfying compositions. Tiny trays transport pastries, eggs, cakes, and other dainty morsels, including a baking surface with an apple pie in the making. Miryani sculpts each itty-bitty croissant or cup of coffee from polymer clay, adding texture to create realistic details. Then, it’s time to bake! Once the clay has hardened in the oven, she adds colorful details in acrylic paint and soft pastels. The next item she plans to add to her menu is a bowl of spaghetti and meatballs.

Miryani is also the founder of a platform dedicated to miniature foods called Yummy Miniature. You can follow more of her work on Instagram.

 

Art

Symbols and Colorful Motifs Inscribe Tomàs Barceló’s Fragmented Steampunk Sculptures

Following a series of fantastic steampunk busts, Tomàs Barceló continues to sculpt figures that infuse classical foundations with otherworldly, mechanical visions. The Cala Millor, Mallorca-based artist shapes faces and limbs from fragmented shards of ceramic and plaster, which are often cloaked with symbols, patterns, and filigree rendered in shellac, acrylics, and chalk and iron paints. Barceló is broadly concerned with establishing a unique presence in his works, which tend to confront the viewer with a steadfast stare or calm, spiritual aura, and each sculpture appears as a relic from a futuristic past.

The artist generously shares a timelapse of the process behind the polychromatic tomb-like work “Naar Keizar” shown below, along with other behind-the-scenes glimpses on YouTube. Find a larger archive of his sculptures on his site and Instagram.

 

Craft

Delicate Slivers of Air-Dry Clay Form Breezy, Idyllic Landscapes by Alisa Lariushkina

One can almost feel the breeze as it swishes through grasslands and ripples streams in the swirling textures of artist Alisa Lariushkina’s bucolic landscapes. Based in Vilnius, the artist draws inspiration from earlier works or from photographs that people share with her. Composed from delicate slivers of air-dry clay, she assembles pieces that subtly shift in size and hue to reflect the sun at different times of day, meadows and flowers that sway in the wind, and the atmosphere of distant mountains. You can follow Lariushkina’s work on Instagram.

 

 

Art Documentary

A Powerful Documentary Captures the Life and Work of Artist Yvonne Shortt Who is Legally Blind

Retinitis pigmentosa is a rare genetic disease that breaks down the retina and causes vision loss as it progresses. Like many with the condition, Yvonne Shortt was diagnosed as a child when she realized that her sight was different from those in her family when they wandered into dark movie theaters or looked at the stars at night, and she struggled to do the same.

Now legally blind as an adult, Shortt cultivates a visual art practice that involves shaping figurative busts from clay, moss, grasses, and other natural materials. “I make a face of a little girl, and I make that face for hours until I feel her breathing. I thought, if I can’t see, will I have that connection with it?” she says of experiencing her vision slowly diminish. “But there’s the tactility, the wetness of the clay, how it dries. I realized that I can still make objects even with my eyes closed.”

Filmmaker James Robinson dives into Shortt’s story in one part of the documentary series Adapt-Ability, produced by The New York Times. The film chronicles how Shortt experienced the progression of the disease and offers a simulation of what the world looks like from her body as she gradually loses clarity and her peripheral vision. Robinson explains:

Unlike the stereotype of the blind living in a lightless world, Ms. Shortt, like most other legally blind people, lives a nuanced existence between those who see well and those who can’t see a thing… She can see some things some of the time, depending on various factors, including the amount of ambient light, her distance from the object and the object’s location in her field of vision.

Although the condition has necessitated life adjustments like the use of a white cane, Shortt has come to understand her limitations as a benefit to her art, her other senses, and her ability to find compassion for those around her. (via Laughing Squid)

 

Art

Fantastical Hybrid Characters by Toco-Oco Imagine the Mysteries of Human Nature

Playfully curious, a troupe of hybrid characters dreamed up by the Brazil-based Toco-Oco (previously) has an inclination for the mythical. Figures sporting feathered suits and wolves cradling human heads are imbued with mystery, and together, the otherworldly cast becomes a metaphor for the varied, emotional, and sometimes bewildering nature of human existence. Toco-Oco, which is helmed by Lara Alcântara and Guilherme Neumann, sells prints and the small sculptures, which are made of wax, wood, and clay, in its shop, although the works sell out incredibly quickly, so be sure to keep an eye on Instagram for information about new releases.