Over 25 Years of a Pioneering Collective’s History Comes Together in ‘Trailblazing Women Printmakers’
Working together from about 1941 to 1969 in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and almost entirely comprised of women block printers, the artists of the Folly Cove Designers comprised one of America’s longest-running artist collectives. The pioneering group produced hundreds of unique designs, and a new book by Elena M. Sarni from Princeton Architectural Press titled Trailblazing Women Printmakers: Virginia Lee Burton Demetrios and the The Folly Cove Designers details the group’s prolific history and extensive works. More
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https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2023/11/trailblazing-women-printmakers/
The Iconic ‘Silver Swan’ Automaton Gets a Well-Deserved Fluff of the Feathers
Silver Swan automaton has beguiled viewers. The mechanical sculpture continues to live up to its original purpose, designed as a crowd-puller to the artist’s workshop in 18th-century London, which also served as a small museum. Today, it is an iconic resident of the The Bowes Museum at Barnard Castle in County Durham, U.K. More
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https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2023/11/silver-swan-conservation/
At a New Restaurant in South Vietnam, Dine Under a Dramatic Thatched Bamboo Canopy
A cascading bamboo lattice shelters diners at the new Keeng Seafood Restaurant in Long Thành, Vietnam, with a nod to the local ecology. Architecture studio BambuBuild designed an elegant hall with a thatched roof evocative of a ship’s prow, supported by columns reminiscent of nipa palms, a riverside plant common in south Vietnam.
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https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2023/11/bambubuild-restaurant/
Berndnaut Smilde Conjures Fleeting Nimbus Clouds as They Hover Indoors
For less than ten seconds, Berndnaut Smilde’s floating sculptures transform galleries, halls, and warehouses into uncanny spaces where indoors meets out. Puffy clouds made of smoke and water hang inside tiled interiors or industrial workshops for a brief time when they’re photographed by the artist’s collaborators. The ephemeral works are part of Smilde’s Nimbus series, ongoing for more than a decade. “I’m still fascinated by capturing a cloud. I never get bored by the process of how the appearance forms into a physical cloud, taking up space, reflecting light, and a specific moment,” he shares. More
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https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2023/11/berndnaut-smilde-nimbus-clouds/
The Largest-Ever Roman Mosaic Found in Anatolia is Revealed to Be Even More Expansive
As the warmer months came to a close in İncesu, Keyseri, Turkey, archaeologists currently at work in a sprawling ancient complex announced that the Roman-era mosaics they uncovered—already recognized as the largest ever found in the region—just keep getting bigger.
Sadogora, or Sadacora, a late Roman and early Byzantine municipality, remnants of which were originally encountered in 2010. Initial excavations brought a series of beautiful mosaic floors to light, some bearing Latin and Greek inscriptions. More
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Comically Candid Snapshots Culminate in the 2023 Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards
A young greenfinch gets scolded, human legs propel a batfish forward, and a kangaroo shreds on an air guitar in this year’s Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards. Created in 2015, the annual contest (previously) is an effort to empathize with the wildlife around us while calling to attention the threats they face. With thousands of entries from around the world every year, the deluge of delightful images serves as a reminder that animals and humans have plenty in common, from idiosyncratic personas and comical clumsiness to the Earth we share. More
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https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2023/11/comedy-wildlife-photography-awards-2023/
Sebastian Foster Announces 30 Artists and For Their Eclectic Fall Print Set
Austin-based gallery Sebastian Foster just announced its 2023 Fall Print Set, marking the 11th anniversary of the collection since it launched in 2012. The new release features 30 works by well-established illustrators, printmakers, and painters from across the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Japan, and Europe. Half of the artists have worked with the gallery for years, while the other half are guests who joined just for this collection.
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https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2023/11/sebastian-foster-2023-prints/
Our Favorite Art Books of 2023
We’ve started to think about finding the perfect gifts for our loved ones and bet you have, too, which is why we’re sharing the first part of our Colossal Year in Review series a little bit early. Below, you’ll find our staff’s favorite art books published this year, from artist monographs, surveys, and historical reflections to prove that art really does make the world a better place.
Bookshop to check out what else made the cut. More
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A Documentary Follows Biologists Fighting Ravens with Lasers and Decoys to Save Desert Tortoises
In 1990, the desert tortoise landed on the federal endangered species list following decades of decline. Expanding human populations in the western U.S. encroached on wild habitats and brought more ravens to the Mojave Desert—the large, black birds are known to scavenge for food and have a particular taste for young reptiles. Coupled with the effects of the climate crisis, these changes rapidly propelled the species toward extinction.
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Sonya Clark Uses Common Fibers to Weaves Together Craft, Community, and Activism
In a poem devoted to the singer and activist Paul Robeson, Gwendolyn Brooks writes, “We are each other’s harvest, we are each other’s business, we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” Sonya Clark draws on Brooks’ words in her mid-career retrospective at the High Museum as she wields the power of collaborative making to illuminate issues of racism, sexism, and capitalist imperatives.
We Are Each Other, the exhibition encompasses 25 years of the artist’s participatory works that highlight the inextricable links between craft and community. More
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https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2023/11/sonya-clark-community-art/
Contemplative Women Emerge Through Subtle Grids in Stelios Pupet’s Paintings
Whether working on a wall or canvas, artist Stelios Pupet begins with a grid. What starts as uniform blocks slowly morph into varied, angular shapes as he works, adding depth and structure to his largely figurative compositions. Viewed through the subtle distortion of the grid, his subjects are often crouching amid cacti and potted plants or curled into themselves in moments of contemplation. He describes his process:
I am focusing on creating a nice image, different or contemporary and easy on the eye.
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https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2023/11/stelios-pupet-paintings-murals/
Mist Casts the Hudson Valley in a Mysterious Light in Andrew Moore’s Atmospheric Photographs
Sheep wander through the morning mist in Rhinebeck and storm clouds ebb over a waterway in dreamlike photographs by Andrew Moore. Known for his in-depth, long-term series that document natural places and the built environment, Moore’s work has focused on the evolution of places like Bosnia, the American South, or Cuba as they evolve over time. In his forthcoming solo exhibition Whiskey Point and Other Tales at Yancey Richardson, Moore delves into the Hudson Valley region of Upstate New York in a group of large-scale, atmospheric landscapes. More
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https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2023/11/andrew-moore-hudson-valley/
Tau Lewis Salvages Found Textiles to Conjure the Enigmatic Figures of Her Imagined Future
A companion to Tau Lewis’s 2022 exhibition Vox Populi, Vox Dei, a monograph by the same name contextualizes and celebrates the artist’s enigmatic, post-apocalyptic vision. Lewis (previously) is known for repurposing textiles into bold works evocative of Yoruban masks and Greek and Roman theatrical traditions. The title translates to “the voice of the people is the voice of god,” a phrase the artist uses to invoke a sense of community and spirituality, two tenets of her imagined world. More
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https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2023/11/tau-lewis-vox-populi/
A Choir From Clay: Colorful Textures Swathe Carlos Cabo’s Ebullient Ceramic Figures
Elegant, richly textured garments cloak artist Carlos Cabo’s enchanting ceramic figures (previously), showcasing the endless possibilities of clay. Tall and slender, the figures sport a wide variety of styles, donning button-down tunics, dresses, neck ties, and hats. While each one is unique, they are drawn together by a synchronic gesture: mouths open wide, they sing toward the sky.
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https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2023/11/carlos-cabo-ceramics/
Toon Joosen Splices Snapshots of ’60s Life into Tongue-in-Cheek Collages
Artist Toon Joosen (previously) continues his retro mashups, splicing two distinct images into ironic and amusing juxtapositions. Having amassed an enormous archive of magazines and newspapers from the 1960s, Joosen tends to identify a pair of clippings “that together strengthen or alienate the whole,” he says. Through warped perspectives and exaggerated scales, the resulting collages reveal the artist’s signature wit as they depict people lounging on massive lilypads, a young boy spraying whipped cream on a beach, and a fisherman reeling in love. More
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https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2023/11/toon-joosen-collages/
Open Planet Is a Growing Library of 4,500 Free Videos Documenting Nature and Climate Issues Around the World
Open Planet wants to bridge that gap. A collaboration between Studio Silverback and Carnegie Mellon’s CREATE Lab, the new digital library contains a growing collection of climate and nature footage available for free use. More
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Tender Moments, Vibrant Plants, and Georgian Culture Adorn the Tbilisi Streets for the Annual Mural Fest
Since launching five years ago, Tbilisi Mural Fest has transformed the streets of Georgia’s capital into a vivid, outdoor gallery featuring dozens of large-scale works in myriad styles. The 2023 event—which expanded to the city of Kurasisi, as well— wrapped up this month with a similarly eclectic collection of works, including Thiago Mazza’s vividly painted botanicals (previously), a realistic rendering of a grandmother pressing dough by Sasha Korban, and Milu Correch’s touching portrait of a mother grasping her two young children. More
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https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2023/11/tbilisi-mural-fest-2023/
Touch the Rainbow: Trippy Rugs Weave Kaleidoscopic Color into Plush Floor Coverings
The days are getting shorter here in the Northern Hemisphere, but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the cheery colors of a summertime rainbow. From the studio of artist Ken Kelleher, a trio of rugs weaves bright, bold hues into organically shaped floor coverings. Hand-dyed, carved, and tufted, the vibrant designs are made with New Zealand wool and evoke rain, drips, and puffy clouds, all rich with kaleidoscopic color.
Ken Kelleher Sculpture. More
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https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2023/11/ken-kelleher-rainbow-rugs/
In Meticulous Paper Portraits, Yulia Brodskaya Coaxes Visions of a Compassionate Future
For millennia, cultures across the globe have venerated mother goddesses who embody maternal roles and symbolize fertility and cosmological creation. For the Inuit, Nerrivik is known as the sea mother and provider, and another deity associated with the sky, Pinga, watches over the hunt. In the Odinani tradition of the Igbo people in southeast Nigeria, Ala presides over the underworld and observes morality, fertility, and creativity. And in Greek mythology, Gaia is poetically portrayed as the personification of the Earth and the ancestor of all living beings. More
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https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2023/11/yulia-brodskaya-gaia/
Olga Prinku Grafts Blooms and Branches Into Expansive Embroideries
Using a vibrant array of real flowers and foliage, North Yorkshire-based artist Olga Prinku (previously) designs intricate embroideries that explode with natural colors and textures. The artist embraces experimentation at a large scale, challenging the traditionally more intimate surfaces of embroidery.
Graft. Using primarily silver birch, she describes the works as “a reference to the horticultural process of transferring twigs from one setting to another but also a nod to the slang meaning of ‘hard work’—it takes a lot of time and patience!”
Contemporary Applied Arts in London through November 18, and a piece selected for the SCAF Emerging Artist Award is on view until January at Lawrence Batley Theatre Gallery. More
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https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2023/11/olga-prinku-embroidery/