sculpture

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Art Craft

Bold Paper Quilled Artworks by JUDiTH + ROLFE Burst With Color and Character

Minnesota-based artistic collective JUDiTH + ROLFE sculpt paper into voluptuous plant and flower motifs blossoming with movement and character. Featuring many botanical species including magnolias, irises and begonias, the duo’s work is a reminder of the diversity of plant structure and form. Each of their floral forms is ‘quilled’ into its shape, from the delicate veins making up the plant’s skeleton, to the fleshy petals exploding with color.

The duo’s business name JUDITH + ROLFE is derived from their middle names; and JUDITH (Daphne Lee) is the artist while her partner, ROLFE (Jamie Sneed), runs the business and logistics. “Before embarking on this journey as a paper artist, I worked for over a decade as an architect in New York City, which is also where I met my husband, Rolfe,” Lee tells Colossal.

Lee and Sneed were drawn to paper as a medium due to its availability and transformability: depending on light, shadows and perspective, their artworks change shape and form. “The technique I use most can broadly be called ‘quilling’ since I work with strips of paper and lay them on edge to form designs,” says Lee. Paper quilling is an artistic practice dating back to the 15th century, which was initially used to decorate religious objects. Basing her technique on the ancient craft, Lee gives her work a contemporary twist by creating big and bold pieces of single flowers or plants. In her process, Lee treats each strip of paper as its own line, from which she ‘sculpts’ her floral artworks. “The paper strips are glued individually to create the artwork, not unlike sketching with paper,” Lee explains. But unlike sketching with paper, Lee’s 3D artworks blossom out of their frame, mirroring the fragile flowers they resemble. 

To view more of JUDITH + ROLFE’s work, visit their website or their Instagram page.

Art

Cleverly Carved Rocks Seem to Open and Flex in New Stone Sculptures by Hirotoshi Ito

Unpolished rocks are sliced and diced in the clever sculptures of Hirotoshi Ito (previously). The Japanese artist carefully carves away sections of naturally-textured stone to create the illusion of motion or flexibility. Rocks appear to be sliced with table knives, hinged to act as velvet-lined coin purses, or unzipped to reveal mouths and miniature worlds. When Ito isn’t carving these lighthearted designs, he creates tombstones, monuments, and sculptures as the Ito Stone Shop. You can stay up to date with Ito’s art via Facebook.

Art

Unnatural Fusions of Animal and Plant Life Form New Elaborate Sculptures by Ellen Jewett

Canadian artist Ellen Jewett (previously) is known for her elaborately decorated polymer sculptures that combine wildlife with flowers, plants, and trees. Jewett, whose educational background is in animal science and behavior, uses her deep understanding of how creatures move through the world to inform her fantastical artworks. In one sculpture, ferns unfurl from the tail of a peacock, while a marsh of cattails grows from the abdomen of a dragonfly in another.

With her most recent sculptures from winter 2018 and spring 2019, Jewett shares with Colossal that she is starting to explore the use of unnatural colors. In doing so, Jewett seeks “to more deeply probe the emotional dimensions of my subjects. I want the emotional presence of the animal to be clearly present even if the precise interpretation remains indiscernible.”

The artist’s work will be shown in a show opening May 11, 2019 at the Urban Nation Museum of Contemporary Art in Berlin, as well as at the MESA Contemporary Arts Museum in Arizona and the Beinart Gallery in Melbourne in September and November, respectively.

Art

Mysterious Mermaid Tails Lodged in Laundromat Machines by Olivia Erlanger

Artist and curator Olivia Erlanger upends fantastical ideas of mermaids with her documentation of mermaid tails emerging from laundromat washing machines. Erlanger, who lives and works in New York City, staged the tails in Laundry Zone in  Los Angeles’ Arlington Heights neighborhood. The installation was conceptualized in partnership with Mother Culture, a contemporary art and media platform that happens to be based near the laundromat.  “Ida” consists of (presumably) life-size mermaid tails that are covered in scales, with bifurcated fins in shades of yellow and pink.

A Los Angeles Magazine article cites Erlanger’s previous installation with snake tongues as an inspiration for the tails. And the artist explains that her tendency to work in, or create, environments helped lay the groundwork for sharing work in a public space. “Ida” was staged in autumn, 2018 and is currently making waves in a new iteration titled “Pergusa” at  the Frieze art fair in New York, which runs through May 5, 2019. Explore more of Erlanger’s work on her website.

 

 

 

Art

Conceptual Typewriter Sculptures by Glenda León Replace Keys With Dripping Candles and Acrylic Nails

Artist Glenda León affixes objects such as matchsticks, melted candles, and acrylic nails to typewriters she sources from antique dealers in Havana, Cuba. Each item replaces the machine’s rubber stamps or keys, and is presented with a different meaning, such as her piece The Insatiable Writer which contains a variety of collected teeth. “The pieces of human teeth establish an analogy between the act of speaking, chewing, consuming and writing,” León explains in an artist statement about the piece. “In the absence of something to swallow, or imagining only a blank sheet as possible food, writing becomes then a devourer of voids, blank sheets.”

The Cuban artist currently splits her time between Havana and Madrid. Her work is currently included in the group exhibition Relational Undercurrents: Contemporary Art of the Caribbean Archipelago at the Portland Museum of Art through May 5, 2019 and Never Real / Always True at the Azkuna Zentroa in Bilbao, Spain through September 22, 2019. You can see more of León’s interventions, like her cubed piano key sculpture, on her website and Instagram.

Art Design

Picasso Portraits Reimagined as Glossy Digital Sculptures by Omar Aqil

For his series Character Illustrations, the art director and illustrator Omar Aqil (previously) uses Pablo Picasso’s painted portraits to inspire digital recreations. Aqil mirrors the artist’s Cubist style by collaging discrete metallic and glossy objects together in the shape of human or animals faces. The Pakistan-based digital artist also references specific works by Picasso in his ongoing series MIMIC, in which he creates futuristic garments and sculptures mixed with elements of interior design. You can see more of his digital musings inspired by famous painters and art historical movements on Instagram and Behance.

Craft Design

Scenes From Award-Winning Literature Crafted With Hand-Cut Paper by Zim & Zou

Paper artists and collaborators Zim & Zou (previously) were invited to create miniature worlds inspired by previous Nobel Prize winners in Literature. The tolerance-themed traveling exhibition Sharing Worlds was organized by the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Knowledge Foundation. The French duo built pieces based on Kristin Lavransdatter written by Sigrid Undset (published in 1920), and One Hundred Years of Solitude written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (published in 1967). Using their own classic style, the pair created colorful scenes packed with geometric details. Their interpretation of Kristin Lavransdatter was created as an ode to 14th-century Norway with a technicolor city set between a pair of deep burgundy mountains. The other work, One Hundred Years of Solitude, features a verdant home nearly hidden from the world by a lush pink and green garden.

The exhibition closed last month, but you can take a virtual tour of it on the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Knowledge Foundation website. You can follow more of Zim & Zou’s recent work on their Instagram and Behance.