3D & Sculpture | artistvenu

Two Elaborately Armored Origami Knights Arise from a Single Sheet of Paper

January 22, 2022 (updated June 24, 2022) Published by artistvenu

Image © Juho Könkkölä

Origami marvel Juho Könkkölä continues to amaze us with his troop of intricately folded warriors of his own design. Following an elaborately armored samurai and sword-and-shield-toting knight, the Finnish artist just released his latest work featuring two characters as they prepare for a fight. Similar to his previous pieces, Könkkölä used a single sheet of 95 x 95 centimeter Wenzhou paper with wet and dry origami techniques—watch his entire process in the timelapse below—to fold the dueling figures.

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Inscribed Lace Patterns Defy Expectations in Cal Lane’s Plasma-Cut Steel Tools and Industrial Objects

January 19, 2022 (updated June 24, 2022) Published by artistvenu

“Sweet Spill” (2010), plasma cut steel, 22.5 x 69 x 23 inches

Using car hoods, shovels, and oil drums as her base, Canadian artist Cal Lane cuts generic lace motifs found on the shelves of mass-market retailers. Her quotidian designs adorn tools and commodities typically associated with masculinity, warping both assumptions about gender and the limits of construction and craft. “I am more interested in the dialog between the object and the image, not so much the lace pattern specifically. I didn’t want the work to necessarily be decorative but to be about decoration and the relationship we have with it,” she shares.

A former welder, Lane is broadly interested in the possibilities of materials, and it’s “the industrial, man-made structure, masculine, modernist quality of steel that I am attracted to. I see steel as a metaphor for confrontation, a thing that represents the walls put up by the society I was born into,” she shares. Her body of work, which includes a series of Industrial Doilies, is steeped in contradiction and an ability to defy expectations, which manifest as delicate filigree inscribed in sturdy hunks of metal.

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Using Clay to Concretize the Psychological State of Being Wounded

January 19, 2022 (updated June 24, 2022) Published by artistvenu

Brie Ruais, “Letting the Fire In, 130 pounds” (2021), pit fired stoneware, hardware, 67 x 67 x 3 inches (production credit to Studio Scala of Santa Fe) (photo by author)

In her clay relief sculptures, Brie Ruais explores the exit wound and its deep psychological implications. For example, in “Exiting Wound, 130 Pounds of Clay,” there is a jagged hole at the center of the relief, with several lines radiating out. Ruais concretizes in clay Ocean Vuong’s metaphor. His 2016 book Night Sky with Exit Wounds suggests many of us bear the emotional equivalent of exit wounds from words fired and misfired our way.

The exit wound is created by Brie Ruais’s body, which is shown in the video “Digging in, Digging Out“, (2021) on view in the Albertz Benda gallery, as well as online on Vimeo. Her process involves pushing clay out from a center where she sits on the ground. She tears, scraps, spreads, to form ray-like forms with luscious textures and a blend of colors. Once this spreading is finished, she cuts the work into pieces and then fires them in a kiln.

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Movement and Flow Infuse Pleated Paper Sculptures and Modular Designs by Richard Sweeney

January 10, 2022 (updated June 24, 2022) Published by artistvenu

“Swan” Image © Richard Sweeney

Evoking the spread wings of a bird in flight or a dancer’s graceful bends, the paper sculptures created by Richard Sweeney (previously) convey movement through an intricate display of folds and pleats. The monochromatic works, which the West Yorkshire, England-based artist manipulates into their final shapes with small cuts, wet creases, and dabs of adhesive, are abstract and asymmetrical in form, inspiring a range of associations. “People see different things—animal skulls and a spinal column being a few of my favorites mentioned so far,” he tells Colossal.

Sweeney’s process has remained largely the same during the last few years, and he still crafts a variety of malleable, modular forms like the pliable helix shown below, although he now gravitates toward more organic shapes that appear to flow from one end to the other.

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Fantastical Artwork Imagines Amphibious Cabins Where You Can Reside on the Water

January 10, 2022 (updated June 24, 2022) Published by artistvenu

Visual artist Dionisio González imagines whimsical amphibious dwellings in his series, Wittgenstein’s Cabin. Rendered in a romantic background of Norwegian fjords, these structures are made up of playful forms wrapped in worn metals. Though he designs many different shapes and sizes, all belong to the same family of fantastical buildings on a body of water.

The name and inspiration for the series come from the work of Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein, a philosopher who studied the principles of mathematics, mind, and language. In 1914, Wittgenstein designed a cabin for himself in the small Norwegian village of Skjolden overlooking a lake. Though Wittgenstein’s hut was very different in form from González’s unusual buildings, both projects were conceived as places for the exploration of thought.

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Complex Networks of Metallic Branches Shape Animal Sculptures by Kang Dong Hyun

January 6, 2022 (updated June 24, 2022) Published by artistvenu

“Forest of Coexistence” (2021), stainless steel and urethane paint, 68 x 80 x 20 centimeters

What eventually becomes a stately stag or majestically posed lion in Kang Dong Hyun’s Forest of Coexistence starts with countless metallic branches that splay in every direction. The Korean artist (previously) welds spindly shoots and sprawling root-like shapes into facial features and bodies that are then finished with urethane paint. Creating a cohesive display of flora and fauna, each hollow, stainless steel sculpture considers the relationship between species and the idea that “all life on Earth may lead to an invisible string,” Kang says. For more of the artist’s intricately formed animals, visit Instagram.

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Why Is Murano Glass So Special (and Expensive)? Experts Give Us 8 Reasons

January 5, 2022 (updated June 24, 2022) Published by artistvenu

John Singer Sargent, Venetian Glassworkers (ca. 1880–82). Courtesy of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

The Getty shop justifies a colorful goblet’s $45 price tag by noting that it hails from the Venetian island of Murano, “famous for its highly prized, collectible glass.” Walmart writes that a $57.95 plum figurine embodies Murano’s “richness of color, originality, and unparalleled craftsmanship.”

Stunning yet pricey, Murano glass is frequently hawked this way: as the epitome of style and quality. But what, exactly, makes it so special? And how did it become an international brand name with such strong resonance in the United States?

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Everyday Objects Are Organized into Perfect Geometric Shapes in Kristen Meyer’s Flat Lays

January 4, 2022 (updated June 24, 2022) Published by artistvenu

Kristen Meyer (previously) pinpoints the unique crossroads of organization and art in her meticulous flat lays. Influenced by interior decorating, prop styling, and floristry, the New Haven-based designer constructs precise geometric shapes and network-esque compositions from humble materials like eggshell shards, office supplies, candy, and disassembled bouquets. At once streamlined in material and rich in depth and texture, the dazzling works use implied outlines and negative space to construct interesting categorizations within squares and perfectly round circles.

Each work is a product of collaboration with Meyer’s husband Colin, who shoots all of the final images. You can explore an archive of her work on Instagram, and browse prints in her shop.

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Meticulously Detailed Ceramics by Kaori Kurihara Concoct Fantastical New Fruits

January 4, 2022 (updated January 4, 2022) Published by artistvenu

Japanese artist Kaori Kurihara (previously) creates otherworldly fruit-like ceramics that appear as though they have sprouted in a magical rainforest or exist in a children’s book. Kurihara’s sculptures take a creative spin on the shapes and textures found in thistles, tropical fare, and other fruits. One of her pieces, for example, resembles a purple durian with a brown seed-like head, while another is textured like pineapple and equipped with a top evoking an artichoke.

Kurihara studies the geometric repetition found in edible botanicals and reproduces their repeating patterns in similar ceramic forms, often enhancing their color. Each piece is delicately and meticulously crafted, and Kurihara first constructs the base then adds the details, sculpting patterns into the main shape using her hands and a series of tools.

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Mushrooms As Metaphors

January 1, 2022 (updated June 24, 2022) Published by artistvenu

Jemila MacEwan: Dead Gods, 2021, mixed media, dimensions variable. PHOTO DAVID B. SMITH

The earliest works of art were interspecies collaborations. Or, at least, this is what the controversial ethnobotanist Terence McKenna argues in his 1992 book The Food of the Gods. Over the course of three million years, he writes, human brain size tripled, outpacing the growth of any other complex organ ever recorded in the history of life. The exact cause of this growth remains a mystery. McKenna promoted a theory that eventually gained him a cult following: that psilocybin—a hallucinogenic, consciousness-altering chemical found in over 200 species of fungi—can cause something of a reset of one’s brain, “rewiring” certain connections (which is why it’s sometimes used to treat post-traumatic stress disorder today). The biochemical reaction also increases self-reflection and erodes certain boundaries and inhibitions. McKenna believed that psilocybin induced soul-searching brought about art, language, poetry, dance, and all else that makes us human.

Largely self-taught, McKenna was a mystic who readily admitted that his evidence was more cultural than scientific. Interested primarily in the meanings and uses humans find for plants (at the time, mushrooms were largely considered plants, though now it’s clear they don’t photosynthesize), he searched out artworks and myths that evoke ancient reverence for fungi from Mesopotamia to the Maya civilization.

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