Jeff Koons

If you’re the type to stop and smell the roses you probably have some appreciation for the natural world. Unfortunately, in this age of technology, less and less people take time to connect with our natural surroundings, which makes the works we’re featuring here so important. The works of Jeff Koons, Ackroyd and Harvey, Binh Danh and Portia Munson all take plant-life and re-contextualize it; the viewer is faced with something familiar cast in a new light. In the cases of Koons and Ackroyd and Harvey, the scale of their works looms over the viewer to remind them that the nature of all things are continually evolving, even that of human civilization. With Portia Munson’s Garden installations, we literally walk into a new world that is groomed yet overgrown, familiar yet psychedelic. Binh Danh’s plant-based portraits balance the fragile surface of the leaves with the powerful imagery of the victims of the 1970’s Cambodian unrest. Though the works are largely different, one thing binds them together, the power of nature to communicate a feeling and a message without words.

Binh Danh

Confront the natural world in your living room with Woolly Pocket. Woolly Pocket lets you transform spaces, making vertical gardens easy to install and maintain. . Our favorite aspect of Woolly Pocket is their Woolly School Gardens project that connect schools looking to start a garden with community members looking to support their efforts. Help kids give nature new meaning  by visiting Woolly School Garden and find a school near you to sponsor.

 
Woolly Pocket

Portia Munson

Portia Munson

Woolly Pocket

Ackroyd and Harvey

Ackroyd and Harvey

Woolly Pocket

Jeff Koons

Until recently I was unfamiliar with the artist Alex Ebstein, but I am glad to have rectified my lack of awareness.  There is an honesty to Ebstein’s work that I find readily engaging.  The use of yarn or string in an artist’s practice can often shift the aesthetic towards a decidedly crafty end result, but Ebstein manages to use the material with such purpose that it might as well be a drawn line in an architectural blue print.  The effectiveness of the work hinges on her ability to merge direct compositional tactics with a more playful approach to the selected materials.  Ebstein’s use of string also elevates the intentionality of her mark marking, and then quickly reasserts itself as a method of creating illusory depth in what would otherwise be relatively flat pieces.  Taught angular moments combined with purposefully relaxed textures start a visual conversation that I am more than happy to participate in.

I could have just included the ‘eye chart’ pieces because I found them extremely aesthetically pleasing, but the back-story provides a bit of insight that I think most would enjoy.  Think of it as a ‘Director’s Commentary’ for the work.  Courtesy of Miss Ebstein, “…then for the eye chart pieces. They are more of a weird reflection on (and obsession with) eyesight and my existing eye problems that force me to visit the doctor every month. I’ve had four eye surgeries in three years… I am always nervously checking my vision against things, one eye at a time, so these drawings were kind of my own dark humored joke about being an artist and constantly worrying about my vision.”  I am of the belief that ‘going blind’ is one of (if not) the most terrifying things any artist could imagine, and I appreciate the candor with which she addresses what could be an immobilizing reality to those with a more pessimistic outlook on life.  Ebstein will be starting grad school this fall, and I am eager to see how this focused environment will affect her work.  I also encourage anyone interested in contemporary art to check out the consistently interesting programming at Nudashank – a gallery she co-runs with Seth Adelsberger in the Baltimore area.

Italian artist Mauro Perucchetti’s pop sculptures take jabs at everything from Barack Obama to religious ideology (see angry Jesus on the cross after the jump). Working in a large range of mediums from hand carved marble (like the above Batman & Superman sculpture) to cast resin, Perucchetti’s work has the perfect mixture of ironic wit and social critique.

Building on the metaphor of the “dome of heaven” as a visual container holding what we know, Carol Prusa  creates work consisting of acrylic hemispheres ranging from bowl-sized to six feet in diameter. Initiated in silverpoint drawing on the convex surface and completed with fiber optics, programmed LED’s and videos housed within, these domes are a visual embodiment – a download of sorts – of what it feels like to be alive while in conversation with contested cosmologies.

“My constructed domes are provocative symbols that invoke the idea of the universe and physical objects that allude to real-life structures. In my “canopies,” I explore a number of mathematical models that physicists developed to explain our universe. The mathematics of my expressed geometries offer a spiritual force that organizes structures from the microscopic to the political. Here, geometry isn’t simply abstract but creates a real world, sustained by its own logic.

To realize the startling phenomena that shape our everyday world, I incorporate digital projection and video technology. Like scientists and mathematicians who model emergent behavior, I too yearn to create a radical vision, one that takes into account the chaotic interactions that are central to formation of the universe.

As artists and scientists seek to explain our place, I join the most advanced daydreamers – those who imaginatively visualize a creative matrix and explore otherworldly possibilities – those who embrace indeterminacy and the fundamentally unstable boundaries between infinitesimal and immeasurable realms.”

In applying borax crystal to books and magazines, Alexis Arnold turns functional reading material into sculpture. The naturally geometric planes of crystal adhere and warp pages, simultaneously marring and preserving classic and lowbrow titles alike. And hey, if nothing else, crystals are pretty cool. If you’re not afraid of inhaling some chemicals, turns out you can make your own at home.

You may remember our popular post last year about the gorgeous crochet portraits of Jo Hamilton. Well the artist decided to document the process of creation via stop motion animation. Watch as an abstract tangle of yarn gets transformed into a portrait through the power of 300 photographs and a lot of patience!

“This is a stop motion video I made to document my process of crocheting one of my larger than life portraits in yarn from start to finish. In my work I use a traditional basic crochet technique taught to me at an early age by my Gran. I work one knot at a time, from the inside out, row by row. In making the crochet portraits I always begin in the middle with the eyes and work out from there until the piece is completed. I work directly from photographs, using no sketches, graphs or computer imaging. Each piece is handmade, labor-intensive, instinctively composed. Nothing is planned ahead; I make it up as I go along. I spend a lot of time simply looking, unraveling, and reworking until I get it right. To make this video I photographed the work after each new yarn color or two was added, and edited the photos into a sequence. This 30 second sequence contains over 300 photos of the work in progress. The portrait is of my dear friend Arthur Cheesman, who is sadly no longer with us.”

Dutch art collective WE MAKE CARPETS create a contemporary interpretation of the centuries-old medium of carpets but with the weaving method, materials, and patterns reflect the 21st century. At a distance, you simply see a decorative carpet. Closer inspection will, however, surprise you as WE MAKE CARPETS uses everyday items to create large carpets.

Products that normally have no value once they have been used, such as plastic forks, plasters, paving tiles, pasta, cotton balls and pegs are arranged in an inventive way to form a graphic pattern. WE MAKE CARPETS are inspired by the color, shape and possibilities of the discarded and cheap materials.  The result is not just a decorative carpet, but an object that makes us think about the consumer society that produces these ‘weaving materials’.

David Mach creates sculptures using a wide variety of materials from coat hangers to collaged paper but his bold portraits made out of thousands of matchsticks are some of my favorites. Gluing tens of thousands of matchsticks together, Mach (appropriate last name huh?) uses matches with various colored tips to create the realistic heads that have a psychedelic meets tribal art feel to them.