Sculptures and Installations: The Art Portfolio of Hollis Roberts
Hollis Roberts is a sculptor who works with textiles and various found materials, creating artworks that find the intersection between the ordinary and the unexpected. Hollis’ sculptures and installations invite viewers to investigate the true nature of seemingly familiar forms.
I really enjoy the heavy, woven textiles that Hollis creates and uses as the basis for many of her…
Monolithic Abstract Forms: The Portfolio of Hiroyuki Hamada
#74, painted plasterHiroyuki Hamada was born in Tokyo and currently lives and works in East Hampton, New York. The artist produces works of sculpture, painting, and print that focus on monolithic abstract forms in black and white or neutral colour palettes.
#64, enamel, oil, plaster, tar, and wax
Some of the artist’s sculptures remind me of large scale works by Martin Puryear. Like Puryear’s works, many of Hamada’s sculptures…
Sculptural Artworks: The Portfolio of Sean Sweeney
Untitled, plexiglass, altered ceiling panels, epoxy resin, latex paint
Sean Sweeney is a conceptual installation artist based in Baltimore. The artist creates sculptural artworks from found objects, often using a subdued colour scheme and hard-edged geometric designs with occasional interventions.
Untitled, iPhone photo on paper in artist-made frame
In our previous feature of Sean’s works, we looked at the way the artist’s…
Jungle Creatures: The Art Porfolio of Jason Shanaman
Mountain Gorilla Silverback and Baby, hydrostone with bronze patina and coloured patina
Jason Shanaman creates beautifully detailed resin sculptures of animals. Most notably, the artist’s work focuses on chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans – though Jason has also produced likenesses of lizards and other jungle creatures.
Primal Thinker Chimpanzee, hydrostone with hand-painted bronze coating and patina
In our previous feature of…
Studio Sunday: Jeffrey Gibson
Jeffrey Gibson is a painter and sculptor who currently lives and works in New York. The artist was born in Colorado and spent time living in both Germany and Korea in his youth, leading to an interesting blend of cultural influences in his artwork. A frequent motif in the artist’s work is also Gibson’s Choctaw-Cherokee heritage.
Gibson’s dog appears to be keeping him company in the studio in this photo – it’s an image…
Headlines: Puryear, Casanova, Looted Artefacts
1) Martin Puryear Will Represent USA in Venice Biennale
After an anxious wait, Martin Puryear has been announced as this year’s Venice Biennale representative for the United States.The U.S. Pavilion in Venice will be curated by Brooke Kamin Rapaport, current deputy director and senior curator of the Madison Square Park Conservancy in New York. Rapaport has worked with Puryear in the past -- in 2016, the artist’s large-scale…
Dollhouse-Sized Dioramas by Ronan-Jim Sevellec
UntitledFrench artist Ronan-Jim Sevellec specializes in creating tiny dollhouse-sized dioramas of various interior scenes. Most of the artist’s works depict buildings in and around Paris.
Untitled
It’s fascinating to see the amount of detail that goes into each one of Sevellec’s art pieces. Photographs of the dioramas taken close-up leave some ambiguity as to whether this is a full-sized room, or a small-scale sculpture. The…
Vicky Smith's Portfolio of Wood-Fired Ceramic
Lift Off, stoneware with porcelain slip, wood-fired
Vicky Smith is an artist and sculptor who works primarily in wood-fired ceramic. The artist’s recent works use birds as a motif, incorporating winged specimens as free-standing sculptures, as well as more subtly into the forms of vessels.
I enjoy the unpolished, natural aesthetic that Vicky employs in her works. Many of the artist’s works use recognizable shapes in such…
Leaving Childhood: Sculpture by Clementine de Chabaneix
METEOR, ceramicFrench artist Clementine de Chabaneix works in sculpture, drawing, and installation. Her artworks often deal with the pain of metamorphosis and of leaving childhood behind. De Chabaneix expresses these themes with a subdued color palette and quiet symbolism.
On her own website, de Chabaneix describes her work as “romantic, [and] a bit gothic…” This idea does seem to perfectly encapsulate the…
Studio Sunday: Alberto Giacometti
Alberto Giacometti was born in Borgonovo, Switzerland, and spent most of his working life in Paris. The artist worked in many media including painting, printmaking, and sculpture, drawing inspiration from surrealism and cubism, but is mainly remembered for his small-scale sculptural works.
Giacometti’s studio looks like a space of well-ordered chaos. The artist, pictured sitting and contemplating one of his sculptures, looks…
An Emotional Journey: Art by Angela Scalisi
Angela Scalisi is an artist and art therapist who also works as a care partner for patients with illnesses including cancer and Alzheimer’s. Angela tends to use her artistic practice as a method of self-reflection, and a tool for expressing an emotional journey.
I enjoy the wide range of materials and media that Angela uses in her artworks. Using art as a therapeutic tool often means that Angela tends to…
Darkly Iconographic: Art by Jeannie Polisuk
Friends Don't Let Friends Do Stupid Things Alone, acrylic on canvas
Jeannie Polisuk combines cute, fuzzy figures with an eye for darkly iconographic composition. The artist’s works – in installation, painting, and sculpture – are at once inviting and uneasy, demanding a conscious effort from viewers to unpack them.
Party Animals, acrylic on canvas
In our previous feature of the artist’s work, we looked at the ways Jeannie uses…
Majesty and Solitude: Art by Rachel Lambert
Multidisciplinary artist Rachel Lambert explores photography, sculpture, land art and more in her practice. The artist’s recent photographic works capture moments of majesty and solitude in remote areas.
In Rachel’s photographs, there is a curious sense of intent focus – though the subject of the image and the framing itself may be expansive, the artist tends to turn her gaze…
Intimate and Opaque: Art by Charles Ray
Baled Truck, stainless steelSculptor Charles Ray works with familiar forms and objects, playing with scale, texture, and process to address a variety of ideas through interactions with the art. Ray is known for rendering human forms in realistic detail to create sculptures that are both intimate and opaque.
Fall '91, mixed mediaBrowsing through images of Ray’s sculptures, I’m reminded of works by Christina A. West. The level of…
Headlines: Vodka, Momacha, Majestic Splendor
1) Russian Gallery to Stop Alcohol Sales After Intoxicated Attack on Painting
The prominent Russian State Tretyakov Gallery says that it may change its policies toward on-site alcohol sales, after a drunk guest, wielding a metal pole, damaged a painting. The painting, a 19th-century masterpiece by Ilya Rapin depicting Czar Ivan the Terrible holding his mortally wounded son in the 1500s, was struck by a security pole several times on…