The early 1780s produced a medical training tool that today seems unusually macabre and unsettling: the Anatomical Venus. A waxen model with real human hair and strings of pearls around her neck, the reclined figure appeared incredibly realistic, although pulling back the plate on its abdomen or chest revealed a series of internal organs and systems. As Ian Shank writes, modern viewers see the Anatomical Venus as discordant given the tension between…
Already more cumbersome than digital techniques, stop-motion animation typically involves sets and characters designed to make subtle movements so that filmmakers can capture minute shifts frame by frame. Directors Jack Cunningham and Nicolas Ménard, of Eeastend Western, have chosen the even more involved process of replacement animation for their recent project. Popularized by George Pal in the 1930s and ’40s, replacement animation involves creating distinctive models for each movement. Where Pal used…
Now based in London, David Surman was raised in a small coastal village in southwest England. The bucolic scenery and access to animals left an indelible impact on the artist, who plumbs his memory and draws on a vast array of art historical references in his paintings. Surman’s most recent body of work is on view in his solo exhibition at Rebecca Hassock Art Gallery. In comparison to previous collections, After the…
Katherine Duclos begins each artwork with a color palette and no plan. Placing modular LEGO bricks one by one, the Vancouver-based artist intuitively builds each dense composition, commencing a repetitive process in which she introduces paint before rearranging again. Duclos’ most recent solo show, aptly titled The light and color we carry, reinforces the overarching significance of color within the artist’s practice. She created her recent collection during a great shift as…
On the site of the former Scott’s Grove Baptist Church, artist Tony M. Bingham has constructed a monumental work of contemplation and reflection. Two wood-paneled walls stand parallel in the serene clearing with stained glass windows, a Sylacauga marble floor, and a steel cutout depicting members who once worshiped on its grounds. A tribute to local history, Bingham’s work is titled “The Praise House,” which takes its name from the vernacular structures…
“Abstraction is not a…simplified way of thinking: it’s a leap—a leap into a dimension that cannot otherwise be understood,” says Haegue Yang, whose multimedia installations and sculptures explore a wide array of material associations, immersing the senses. Series such as Light Sculptures and Sonic Sculptures defy genres, often combining ready-made, mass-produced items with industrially created substances. At the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, Yang’s solo exhibition Lost Lands and Sunken Fields engages…
In the Jordanian desert, Syrian families displaced by war huddle atop stacks of boxes like stalwart islands in a dry and unforgiving landscape. Photographer Nick Brandt captures children, siblings, and entire families who stand together and climb skyward like monuments or promontories—what the artist describes as “pedestals for those that in our society are typically unseen and unheard.” The series marks the fourth chapter in an ongoing series called The Day May…
Within southwest Arkansas’s Garvan Woodland Gardens, a four-story communal treehouse welcomes visitors to the Evans Children’s Adventure Garden. Designed by modus studio and constructed in 2018, the whimsical yet contemporary structure is embraced by pine and oak trees, connecting visitors to the surrounding woods via elevated walkways and lookouts. “This unique structure is a defining small project for modus,” the team says, sharing that the work draws on their own childhood experiences…
As AI infiltrates every part of the creative process, those committed to human expression have found innovative ways to make craft and artistry endlessly appealing. Creative director Jason Pattinson is one such person. He’s behind Fleckled, a new online shop of hand-printed letterpress typefaces that have been digitized and are available as high-resolution downloads. Currently, Fleckled contains more than 150 fonts printed on an 1860s-era Columbian press, with more on the way. All…
When Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 C.E., the enormous explosion buried the city of Pompeii in an astonishing 19 meters of ash and debris. (A recent study concludes that in the neighboring town of Herculaneum, the blast was so intense that it vitrified a young man’s brain.) Since excavations of the area began in 1748, discovery after discovery has revealed lavish, poignant, and complex details about what life was like nearly 2,000…
