After unknowingly purchasing fake pre-Colombian artifacts, artist Nadín Ospina gave serious thought to Latin-American culture and its ancient roots. His sculptures depicts pop-culture cartoon characters such as Snoopy, Micky Mouse, and Bart Simpson in an often pre-Colombian style. His work is a powerful but simple comment on the globalization of entertainment and information. How much of our personal and collective identities is lost to an increasingly global community?
Photographer Fong Qi Wei transforms flowers simply by dismantling them. Her series Exploded Flowers captures a variety of flowers picked apart petal by petal then carefully arranged. The meticulously arrayed petals closely resemble mandalas or celestial bodies. Each composition underscores the unbelievable symmetry packed into often small flowers. However, there is also subtle medical atmosphere to the photographs, as if they were autopsied flowers or like pinned butterflies. Her series has garnered her some awards including 2nd place in the International Photography Awards’ Nature category. [via]
Like its real-life counterpart, this coral reef is alive in a way. Organized by the LA based non-profit organization, Institute for Figuring, the reef was lovingly constructed by many hands. According to the Institute for Figuring, the institute is “an organization dedicated to the poetic and aesthetic dimensions of science, mathematics and engineering”, and certainly does this with its Crochet Coral Reef.
The public is invited to participate by crocheting different organisms that are added to the larger crochet habitat. The reef has grown to become one of the largest participatory science and art projects in the world. It does much more than organize a community to engage with visual art and craft. It brings attention to the biology of coral reefs, emphasizes their importance, and reminds us of the danger they’re currently in.
Artist and architect Hong Yi emphasizes ‘art’ in culinary art. Her simple white dishes are plated with food. However, this is more than a simple meal. Only using these white dishes and food ingredients, Hong Yi recreates famous works of art, light hearted scenes, and pop culture icons. The project began as 31 days of creativity in March – an exercise she began to encourage more creativity every day. Each day Hong Yi would create a new piece and post it on instagram. [via]
The work of artist Joanie Lemercier resembles Tron type imagery that has come to life. This piece’s materials, however, are really rather simple: paper and light. Lemercier folds paper into variously sized pyramids which are then arranged as a composition on the wall. The composition is visually mapped and a light projection is layered onto the installation. The result is a futuristic glowing geometric pattern. Lemercier is a member of AntiVJ – a “visual label”, a collective of artists that focus on light and perception in regards to art. If you enjoy the work of Joanie Lemercier, check out the work of fellow member Olivier Ratsi.
These are much more than simple balloon animals. Jason Hackenwerth‘s creations float like giant swimming organisms. His newest creature, Pisces, which recently debuted at the Edinburgh International Science festival is particularly massive. Pisces is built of thousands of balloons blown up and tied together. It took three of members of the festival six days to blow up all of the balloons for the 40 foot structure. The piece now hangs in the Grand Gallery of the National Museum of Scotland through April 14, 2013.
Russian graphic designer and artist Yulia Brodskaya draws with paper instead of on it. Her highly detailed pieces are constructed of rolled, folded, and carefully placed strips of color paper. The intricate curls of paper are intriguing in themselves while creating a larger image – it took me a moment to realize what I saw in the top image. Brodskaya’s process and style has garnered her some serious attention. Her long client list includes companies such as Starbucks, Anthropologie, Penguin Press, and HOW Magazine. [via]
Designer Outmane Amahou‘s posters seem to need very few words accompanying them. This series is appropriately called Minimalist Art Movement Posters. Amahou glides through art history with a minimalist design style. Icons of art history’s various movements and schools stand elegantly alone at the center of each poster. Warhol’s soup can, Magrite’s pipe, Duchamp’s urinal all act as familiar symbols of their respective styles.
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