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Art

Nature and Nostalgia Merge in Assemblages Made from Vintage Boxes by David Cass

In the multi-media works of Athens-based artist David Cass, memories and tokens of bygone eras are assembled into compositions that evoke both nostalgia for the past and serve as a reminder of fluctuations in nature due to a changing climate. Cass collects a variety of items like old letters from flea markets, matchboxes, and tins, especially those associated with safekeeping. In some pieces, he accumulates small boxes into larger vessels like cabinet drawers, while in others, the item itself serves as the canvas for original paintings responding to the surface.

An ongoing theme in Cass’ practice is the way attitudes toward nature have shifted in recent generations, describing in a profile about his creative process that “ours is the first epoch in which the natural world has been seen as a problem, as itself in danger.” A recent exhibition called Where Once the Waters, which comprised dozens of tiny painted tins and was shown during the Venice Biennale, focused on a shifting horizon line. Water plays a central role in the connections he draws between past and present, highlighting the changeable nature of the sea and how oceans are rising around the world. A motif of flowing lines signifying the movement of the liquid appears in many of his works, responding to the texture, scale, and patina of each unique object.

You can find more of Cass’ work on his website and on Instagram. (via This Isn’t Happiness)

 

Art

Cleverly Collaged Portraits Layer Vintage Ads and Magazine Spreads into Dramatic Daydreams

With a flair for spectacle and clandestine activities, the perfectly coiffed characters of Shane Wheatcroft’s collages face a deluge of intrigue and drama. The Kent-based artist snips vintage ads and editorial spreads that become the musings of professionally photographed subjects: a woman replays an excruciating party scene, a businessman envisions a wholesome family gathering, and quite a few protagonists imagine scenarios they likely keep covert.

Having worked with the medium for the last five years, Wheatcroft boasts a body of work that includes a broad array of collages, from bold typographic sayings to cheeky compositions that use ad slogans and outmoded headlines to poke fun at social conventions. Surreal and witty, the new portraits feature imagery from periodicals published between 1945 and 1975. They’re spurred by “being a big fan of John Stezaker and buying old movie annuals that had stunning publicity shots of film stars on plain backgrounds. The recent series I’m making is really my attempt to reflect everyday dramas and scenarios through the medium of collage,” he says.  “They’re kind of like a hybrid of Dalí’s portrait of Mae West and Coronation Street.”

The main portrait sets the tone for the piece, Wheatcroft tells Colossal, with the background image, furniture, and figures pasted on top. These additional elements compose an abstract representation of a face and generally feature a single eye peering through a television set or frame on the wall. “I’ll often have a song or personal experience in my head that’ll become the theme of the piece,” the artist says. “I can spend hours searching for an image of the right-sized chair or person that will fit. It’s a bit like making a jigsaw puzzle and hunting for the missing pieces.”

Represented by Lilford Gallery in Canterbury, Wheatcroft has been sharing a variety of flat collages and 3D diorama-style pieces—see these layered works up close on Instagram—and he also has a few pieces available for purchase on Artfinder. (via Kottke)

 

Art Craft

Found Vintage Photographs are Reinterpreted with Colorful Overlays by Julie Cockburn

Working with vintage photographs, artist Julie Cockburn (previously) re-energizes images that have been lost to time with colorful overlays. Cockburn adds tightly stitched orbs, swirling marbled enamel, and architectural structures as overlays to black-and-white or softly toned studio portraits, candid snaps, and landscape photos.

The London-based artist’s current solo exhibition, ‘Telling It Slant’, is on view through November 2, 2019 at Flowers Gallery‘s Kingsland Road location. Cockburn’s show title alludes to an Emily Dickinson poem called Tell all the Truth but Tell it Slant. In a statement, the gallery describes the artist’s work as “excavat[ing] authentic stories by circuitous means… Cockburn embarks on a visual journey to delicately reveal narrative histories and layered meanings in lost and discarded images. Cockburn partially obscures the images in a process she describes as ‘paradoxically unmasking’ their intrinsic truths.”

See more of the artist’s work on Instagram, and place an order for Cockburn’s first monograph, Stickybeak, published by Chose Commune.

Art Craft

Radial Circles Embroidered Atop Vintage Photographs Act as Multi-Faceted Color Swatches

Striped circles hover over vintage scenes of natural and built landscapes in embroidered interventions by Natalie Ciccoricco. Using colored threads that perfectly match the tones of the underlying images, Ciccoricco builds radial circles that act as multi-faceted color swatches. Each circle contains more than a dozen different hues of embroidery thread to pick up the nuanced colors present in the vintage images. In one photograph of a desert, the embroidered lines connect to light green cacti, blue sky, and a brown mountain. In another, the varied blue hues of water consume most of the image—and its corresponding circle—while thin black lines pick up the reflection of a boat’s hull.

Ciccoricco, who is Dutch and based in California, is represented by Zukowski Collective. When she is not crafting her embroidered images, she works as a freelance graphic designer and software language translation consultant. The artist shares her work on Instagram, and offers original artwork in her online store as well as some items on Society6.

 

 

 

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 Craft

Forgotten Household Objects Cloaked in Needlepoint by Ulla Stina-Wikander

Sweden-based artist Ulla Stina-Wikander (previously) continues her signature needlepoint interventions on domestic objects. Items traditionally associated with women’s housekeeping, like electric mixers and sewing machines along with hammers, wrenches, and axes, are cloaked in tightly fitting decorative designs. Stina-Wikander sources the needlepoint samples from flea markets and vintage stores, and is attracted to their connection with the now-anonymous people who made them. “These embroideries have been made by women and are often seen as kitsch and regarded as pretty worthless,” she states on her website. In using them in her interventions, the artist gives the abandoned textile works a new life. Explore more of Stina-Wikander’s work on Instagram.