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Art

Mercurial Emotions Carved into New Glitched Sculptures by Yoshitoshi Kanemaki

Japanese sculptor Yoshitoshi Kanemaki (previously) captures the emotional complexities of youth in his glitched 3-dimensional portraits. Kanemaki carves tree trunks into figures—often young women—whose faces are multiplied in expressions that range from distressed to joyful in a single sculpture. The figures’ casual, natural poses seem to capture them in real time: some of the artist’s characters perch on chairs mid-conversation, and others gesture with their arms to express confidence or bashfulness. In his finished works, Kanemaki usually uses lifelike coloring, but for one recent sculpture shown in detail below, the artist experimented with creating the sensation of an out-of-focus image by using soft, blurred shapes and colors to complete the expression. See more of the sculptor’s finished and in-progress works on Instagram and Facebook. (via Hi-Fructose)

Art

Head-Turning Historical Portraits by Ewa Juszkiewicz

Ewa Juszkiewicz subverts the traditional notion of female portrait sitters as passive, simple subjects in her subtly unusual oil paintings. The artist constructs each painted portrait using familiar tropes from European art history, sometimes even citing specific paintings as inspiration. Female subjects with smooth, pale skin and luxurious apparel are placed in front of abstract or generically bucolic settings, sometimes with a “gender-appropriate” item in hand, like a paint brush, small book, or feather.

But in place of the beautiful face a viewer would expect in the center of these pleasant trappings, Juszkiewicz has turned the subject’s head 180 degrees to show an elaborate hairstyle, or filled the face with unruly plants or ribbons. A statement on the artist’s website explains, “Through the deconstruction of historical portraits, she undermines their constant, indisputable character and tries to influence the way we perceive them. Juszkiewicz experiments with the form of the female figure and face, balancing on the border between what is human and inhuman.”

The artist lives and works in Warsaw, Poland. She is represented by Galerie Rolando Anselmi in Berlin, where she will have a solo show on view in November and December, 2019. Juszkiewicz shares updates from her work and travels on Instagram.

 

Art

Vintage Family Photos Painted As Large Scale Murals by Mohamed L’Ghacham

Morocco-born, Barcelona-based artist Mohamed L’Ghacham paints large figurative murals based on scenes from vintage family photos and everyday objects. Often choosing photographic “accidents” for their authenticity, the artist paints meals, table settings, toasts, and other communal rituals performed by normal people. When viewed at a wall-sized scale, the personal and seemingly unimportant moments gain new meaning and become more emotionally resonant for viewers despite never having met the families portrayed.

L’Ghacham’s use of muted color palettes connects the murals with their respective urban surroundings while also staying true to the vintage aesthetic of the source photography. Loose, layered brush strokes give the general shape of facial features and objects, but a step back from the image is necessary to appreciate the full snapshot. Head to the Mohamed L’Ghacham’s Vimeo page to see the artist in action, and follow his Instagram for more in-progress and completed mural photos.

Art Photography

Black Bodies Painted and Photographed Like the Cosmos by Mikael Owunna

Mikael Chukwuma Owunna, a queer Nigerian-Swedish artist raised in Pittsburgh, has spent the past two and a half years photographing Black men and women for a series titled Infinite Essence. Hand-painted using fluorescent paints and photographed in complete darkness, Owunna’s subjects are illuminated by a flash outfitted with a UV filter, which turns their nude bodies into glowing celestial figures.

Owunna tells Colossal that the series was his response to the frequent images and videos of Black people being killed by those sworn to protect them: the police. The photographer’s friends, family members, dancers, and one person he connected with on Instagram serve as models for the project, which is named after an idea from his Igbo heritage. “All of our individual spirits are just one ray of the infinite essence of the sun,” Owunna explains. “By transcending the visible spectrum, I work to illuminate a world beyond our visible structures of racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia where the black body is free.”

Having struggled with his own body image (and with his identity as a gay African man, which has inspired his previous work), Owunna says that the response to the project has been powerful, both from the public and from the models. “One of the models, Emem, broke down in tears looking at their pictures saying that they had always dreamed of seeing their body adorned with stars and that these images were beyond their wildest imagination,” he said. “They then told me – ‘every black person deserves to see themselves in this way’ and how the experience was life-altering for them.”

After seeing Owunna’s work via an NPR feature, a 60-year-old Black woman told the photographer, “I’ve hated my body all my life, but–for a glorious instant–that photo made me feel good about it.”

To see more of Mikael Owunna’s work and to be informed about his upcoming lectures and exhibitions, follow the artist on Instagram and Twitter.

Craft

Antique Lace and Handkerchiefs Add Detail to Embroideries of Female Icons by Lily Bloomwood

Self-taught artist Lily Bloomwood utilizes bits of antique lace, handkerchiefs, and delicate pieces of old knitting as the starting point for her embroidered portraits of female figures. Many of the works are inspired by women of the silent movie era such as the Canadian born actress and producer Mary Pickford or Olive Thomas, who is regarded as the very first “flapper.” Bloomwood is also inspired by relatively unknown medieval heroines, women she chooses to immortalize in her embroidered canvases. You can see more of the London-based artist’s work on Behance, and buy her work on Etsy. (via Colossal Submissions)

Art

Paint Smudges and Smears Form Abstract Portraits by Kai Samuels-Davis

California-based artist Kai Samuels-Davis layers linear paint strokes and large washes of color to form shapes that are recognizable as faces, but without all of the visual information seen in traditional portraiture. The artist relies on the process to find the image, often starting with a sketch or a simple circle to build upon for the face. Working in a space between the representational and expressive, the artist is able to focus on emotion through abstraction so that the viewer can form their own narrative through each gesture and colorful brush stroke.

“None of the final aesthetic is planned,” Samuels-Davis tells Colossal. “Each mark, brush stroke and color is a reaction to what came before it. When I’m working on a portrait the subject appears to morph between multiple individuals over the course of the painting, often times becoming slightly androgynous in the process. I tend to bounce around the surface a lot, pushing and pulling between background and subject, painting over parts, figuring out what each piece needs until there’s nothing I would change.”

Working primarily with found images, Samuels-Davis spends months or even years on his portraits, with dozens of works in progress at a given time. His work will be included in the group exhibition PAINTGUIDE at Thinkspace Gallery this November. To see more of his completed paintings of faces, flowers, and animals, follow him on Instagram.

Art Illustration

Swirling Patches of Multi-Hued Colored Pencil Compose Portraits by Linsey Levendall

Artist and illustrator Linsey Levendall constructs portraits by sketching hundreds of tiny patches of color, creating multi-hued landscapes that take the form of his subjects’ hair and skin. The prismatic works show a range of human conditions, capturing everything from deep introspection to pure bliss. Levendall shares with Colossal that his works are inspired by a wide collection of interests including Salvador Dali, animation, graphic novels, and Cubism. The artist grew up in Cape Town’s Cape Flats, however he now lives and works in rural Canada. You can see more of his portraits created in colored pencil and ink on Instagram and Behance.