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Art Craft

An Enormous Skeleton Emerges in the Middle of a Mexican Street for Día de los Muertos

Photograph: Felipe Esteban Paredes Padrón

In celebration of Día de los Muertos, artist Raymundo Medina built a massive skeleton that appears to lurch out of the pavement on a street in Santa Cecilia Tláhuac, Mexico. Medina created the sculpture in the aesthetic of the Mexican holiday that celebrates deceased loved ones and ancestors. According to Miguel Ángel Luna, Medina is a member of the Jaén Cartonería collective and collaborates with Yaocalli Indians in his work. Built with papier-mâché and painted with starkly delineated black and white areas, the skeleton seems to be almost smiling, referencing the joyful purpose of Día de los Muertos to celebrate death as a part of life.

Photograph: Felipe Esteban Paredes Padrón

Photograph: via local.mx

Photograph: via local.mx

Photograph: via local.mx

Art

Gestural Brush Strokes and Focused Color Palettes Form Watercolor Portraits by Nick Runge

Los Angeles-based artist Nick Runge paints watercolor portraits of people and human skeletons in a unique style that blends elements of abstraction with hints of realism. Soft edges of layered shapes and blended flesh and bone tones present all the visual information required to see features, without crossing into the realm of photorealism.

“I do sketch out the composition first, but I try not to have any kind of formula,” Runge tells Colossal about his painting process. “I try to narrow down the colors to ‘warm’ and ‘cool’ as a rough idea. I like to guide the watercolor but let it also do its own thing, to be more abstract.” Muted colors and expressive poses add to the naturalistic feel of the portraits, even when the subject is a jacket-wearing skeleton.

Raised in Colorado by now-retired professional artist parents (a college art professor and a graphic designer), Runge says that he did not study art formally but that he did benefit from having both of their perspectives. After working as an illustrator for 11 years, he found his voice in 2004 through experimentation. “Oil paint and watercolor allowed me to loosen up and step away from the highly realistic, pop type art (done mostly with acrylics and pencils) and let the paint do more of its own thing,” Runge explains, “Also, getting away from celebrity portraits and pop culture allowed me to focus more on HOW something is painted, and not WHAT/WHO I’m painting. Art for art’s sake.”

To see more of Nick Runge’s paintings, follow the artist on Instagram. He also has online and in-person watercolor workshops for those interesting in learning.

Art

Muralist Kitt Bennett Paints Pavement With Sprawling Giants

All images via Kitt Bennett

From parking lots to skate parks, Melbourne-based artist Kitt Bennett paints large illustrative murals on an unconventional surface: the ground. The almost literal “street” art is best seen from a bird’s eye view and features people, objects, and skeletons that contort around their respective spaces as if they fell from the sky.

Bennett’s murals are painted much like the walls of a house. The artist uses large buckets of paint and rollers to cover the large areas and adds shading, highlights, and outlines to create the illusion of depth. A statement on his website explains that Bennett’s work is “often conceptually driven as exploring topics of individuality, existence and the mysterious phenomena that surrounds us inspires him to create art.” To see more of his ground paintings and other works on more traditional surfaces, follow Kitt Bennett on Instagram.

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A post shared by KITT (@kitt_bennett) on Jan 6, 2019 at 12:46am PST

Art

Colorful Strands of Thread and Beads Highlight the Contours of Human Skulls

Jim F. Faure, who goes by Jim Skull, introduces his decades-long practice with his pseudonym. The Paris-based sculptor focuses exclusively on human skulls. Using innumerable strands of colorful thread, Murano glass beads, rope, and even porcupine quills, Faure creates an entirely new “skin” for the skeletal forms. Each skull’s covering also trails off into dramatic cascades that shape-shift depending on how the skull is displayed.

Faure transforms the surface of an object that often strikes fear into a visually enticing decorative object, inviting the viewer to study the divots and contours of our shared anatomical structure. In an artist statement, the sculptor cites his upbringing in New Caledonia in the South Pacific, followed by wide-ranging international travels in New Zealand, India, and Hong Kong as informing his fascination with the ritual and cultural aspects of the human experience. You can see more of Faure’s work on his website.

Art

A Pulsating Neon Skeleton by Tavares Strachan Honors Scientist Rosalind Franklin

Courtesy of Tavares Strachan, all photography and video by Tom Powel Imaging.

What Will Be Remembered in the Face of All That is Forgotten is a sculptural neon work by the New York City-based artist Tavares Strachan made between 2014-2015. The five-foot-tall piece includes pulsating neon that mimics the racing of blood through veins, stainless steel to hold the skeleton in place, and a total of seven transformers. The flashing circulatory system is a glowing reminder of English scientist Rosalind Franklin’s contributions to the field of science, mainly the discovery of DNA’s molecular structures. The work was originally included in the solo exhibition Seeing is Forgetting the Thing that You Saw at Anthony Meier Fine Arts in San Francisco, which examined individuals whose names have been omitted from common accounts of history despite their great accomplishments.

Strachan, in partnership with LACMA Art + Technology Lab and SpaceX, also recently launched a sculpture honoring Robert Henry Lawrence Jr., the first African-American to train as an astronaut with NASA. Although Lawrence never made it into space, a 24-karat gold urn with his bust titled “Enoch” will orbit the Earth for seven years in a sun-synchronous orbit. You can see more of Strachan’s sculptural work, and keep up-to-date on the location of Enoch, on Instagram.