The Massive Clothes Line Installations of Kaarina Kaikkonen

by

Kaarina Kaikkonen installation Kaarina Kaikkonen installation

Kaarina Kaikkonen installation

The installations of Finnish artist Kaarina Kaikkonen are surreally familiar.  Her work seems to take the familiar domestic scene of clothes drying on the line to its wonderfully illogical end.  It’s easy to get lost day dreaming about the many people that once filled the second-hand clothing.  For Kaikkonen, this exercise and her work are intensely personal – her father died in front of her when she was young and the installation became a way of processing her emotions.  Indeed, the clothing acts as a kind of physical manifestation of memories for Kaikkonen – sort of the only vestige of a body that otherwise only exists in the mind.

Read More>

Jonathan Josefsson’s Abstract Rugs

by

Swedish artist Jonathan Josefsson is producing a series of rugs that act as abstract sculptural works. By creating pieces within the confines of a familiar house object Josefsson is helping to reinvigorate the ancient craft of rug making. The rugs are displayed on the wall in an exhibition setting as art objects. The fluid forms are reminiscent of cells found in biology. (via)

Read More>

Advertise here !!!

Michelle Blade’s 366 Days of the Apocalypse Exhibition

by

San Francisco based artist Michelle Blade has just opened her exhibition entitled Making Light Of It: 366 Days of The Apocalypse at The Center For Contemporary Arts Santa Fe, New Mexico. The work in the show was created by producing one painting every day of the year 2012, all with the theme of the end of the world rumors involving the Mayan calendar. The show is on view through February 17th. All of the paintings in the series can be seen on Michelle’s Tumblr. From the press release: “As a daily meditation on her relationship with painting and with the apocalyptic Mayan prophecies surrounding 2012, Blade’s work investigates themes of ritual and prophecy. Blade’s solo exhibition Making Light of It features the debut of all 366 apocalypse paintings, alongside new sculptural works, as a triumphant New Year proclamation.”

Read More>

Li Hongbo’s Flexible Paper Sculptures That Abstract As They Pull Apart

by

honbo-1 honbo-2

Li Hongbo – Pure White Paper from Dominik Mersch Gallery on Vimeo.

Chinese artist Li Hongbo’s sculptures are quite bizarre. Walking up to them you may think that they are made out of delicate porcelain but as you examine it further you’ll see that it in fact is made out of thousands of sheets of paper manually glued together. As you pull the paper apart the figures twists, turns, bends and abstracts creating stretched out imagery that is at once horrifying and exquisite. (via)

Read More>

The Everyday Lives of “Furries” Photographed by Tom Broadbent

by

At Home With The Furries

Unknown-12

Unknown-10

As part of our ongoing partnership with Feature Shoot, Beautiful/Decay is sharing Sophie Chapman-Andrews’ article on Tom Broadbent.

Zuki, a Gargoyle at home. Zuki lives in Milton Keynes and works in IT. Zuki owns a few suits, the gargoyle is just one of them.

First rule of Fur Club: don’t reveal your identity. Second rule of Fur Club: don’t talk to journalists.

British photographer Tom Broadbent has been getting to know various “Furries” throughout the UK for the last few years. Furries are everyday people, from bank managers to project managers to actors, who dress up in elaborate furry animal costumes and meet up to chat and hang out. Furry groups have been spotted walking around London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral and Millennium Bridge.

At Home With the Furries is Broadbent’s ongoing project, born from a desire to capture the personal, everyday side of their lives without breaking that first Furry rule. Broadbent plans to exhibit and publish this unique series, so keep an eye out for that.

Read More>

Livia Marin’s Beautifully Broken China

by

Livia Marin Sculpture Livia Marin Sculpture

Livia Marin Sculpture

Livia Marin‘s Broken Things seem just fine.  The sculptures of her Broken Things series do indeed appear to be broken ceramic dishware.  However, for what the household items lost in usefulness retain in its aesthetic value.  Congealed liquid seems to pour out of the damaged cups.  The decorative patterns are pulled along out with the container’s little spill.    The sculptures are reminiscent of a family’s “good china” – utilitarian objects that seem to cherished for their decorative nature rather than ever see any use.

Read More>

Sculptures Made Out Of Tiny Paint Droplets

by

Chris Dorosz painting Chris Dorosz painting

Artist Chris Dorosz uses a unique painting technique.  He drips paint droplets onto plastic rods.  When arranged the rods form a three dimensional image, a pointillism like sculpture.  Step back from the screen for a moment – the disparate dots congeal to from images of people.  The fact that this is similar to the way a low resolution digital image works is not an accident.  Dorosz revels in the idea of the drop as a basic unit of constructing a painting.  He says:

“Out of material discovery I began to regard the primacy of the paint drop, a form that takes shape not from a brush or any human-made implement or gesture, but purely from its own viscosity and the air it falls through, as analogous to the building blocks that make up the human body (DNA) or even its mimetic representation (the pixel).”

Read More>

Belgium’s Massive Carpet Made Out Of Flowers

by

fc2012_11

fc2012_10

fc2012_4

The Flower Carpet Festival is a popular event that takes place in Grand-Place Brussels every other year. Since 1971 over 600,000 Begonias flowers are arranged in an intense pattern filling the city square with a powerful and graphic carpet made entirely out of flowers. Taking months of planning to produce (with only 48 hours of install time) the event brings together landscape architects, technicians and hundreds of voluntary participants weave the flowers in place for the five day event! See more photos from this years festival as well as previous years designs after the jump. (via)

Read More>