Yuichi Ikehata: An impressive body of work situated between illusion and reality, Fragment of Long Term Memory is a fascinating series by Japanese artist Yuichi Ikehata, who blends sculpture, photography, wire, ceramic, and paper to create surreal images representing incomplete and blurred memories of her own body.
An impressive and beautiful anamorphic sculpture imagined by artist Thomas Medicus, Emergence Lab is an amazing creation that combines six different paintings in a single translucent cube. The pieces of the different paintings were created on 216 strips of acrylic resin, laser-cut and then arranged in a cube filled with a silicone oil. Mesmerising!
Michael Murphy: We love these fascinating suspended sculptures by Brooklyn, NY artist Michael Murphy, who uses hundreds of suspended elements to create one final image visible from a single point of view. His latest creation, ‘Perceptual Shift’, is made up of 1200 black spheres, forming a perfectly shaped eye if you’re in exactly the right spot and is currently visible at the I.M.A.G.E. gallery. For more of Michael Murphy’s amazing creations, we suggest a visit to his website. Awesome stuff! 🙂
Alejandro Durán: We love the amazing ‘Washed Up’ series by Mexican artist Alejandro Durán who organises the discarded waste he finds in nature into beautiful and yet somewhat terrifying art installations. Alejandro Durán does not remove or add anything, but simply rearranges the garbage he finds on site. Alejandro Durán was born in Mexico City in 1974 and lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He is a multimedia artist working in photography, installation, and video. His work examines the fraught intersections of man and nature, particularly the tension between the natural world and an increasingly overdeveloped one. About his current work, Durán comments “In my current project, Washed Up, I address the issue of plastic pollution making its way across the ocean and onto the shores of Sian Ka’an, Mexico’s largest federally-protected reserve. With more than twenty pre-Columbian archaeological sites, this UNESCO World Heritage site is also home to a vast array of flora and fauna and the world’s second largest coastal barrier reef. Unfortunately, Sian Ka’an is also a repository for the world’s trash, which is carried there by ocean currents from many parts of the globe. Over the course of this project, I have identified plastic waste from fifty nations on six continents that have washed ashore along the coast of Sian Ka’an. I have used this international debris to create color-based, site-specific sculptures. Conflating the hand of man and nature, at times I distribute the objects the way the waves would; at other times, the plastic takes on the shape of algae, roots, rivers, or fruit, reflecting the infiltration of plastics into the natural environment.” To view more of Alejandro Durán’s work, we recommend a visit to his website.
Ellen Jewett: We love this new series of phantasmagorical sculptures by Canadian artist Ellen Jewett, who creates beautiful yet surreal animal sculptures that seem to inhabit the magical worlds of natural history and legend as well as dreams and mythology. Ellen Jewett was born in Markham, Ontario and took to shaping three dimensional forms naturally at a young age. In 2007, Ellen completed her post secondary honours degree in Anthropology and Fine Art at McMaster University and while finishing her undergraduate studies, worked in medical illustration, exotic animal care and was teaching a children’s class on stop motion animation. By the time she presented her thesis, Ellen’s academic and artistic interests in the biological were intrinsically interwoven. Ellen Jewett set out on her own path as a career artist while still in high school, spending long summer weekends travelling to exhibitions. Ever the curious soul, Ellen has continued to study art and science respectively while working as an artist, most recently, through Haliburton School of the Arts and University of Guelph. She has also accumulated certifications in other areas of personal intrigue, including applied animal behaviour modification and crisis counseling. According to Ellen, it all informs her art; enriching the content of the unconscious narrative flow. “Plants and animals have always been the surface on which humans have etched the foundations of culture, sustenance, and identity. For myself, natural forms are a continual source of fascination and deep aesthetic pleasure. At first glance, my work explores the more modern prosaic concept of nature: a source of serene nostalgia balanced with the more visceral experience of ‘wildness’ as remarkably alien and indifferent. Upon closer inspection of each ‘creature’, the viewer may discover a frieze on which themes as familiar as domestication and as abrasive as domination fall into sharp relief. These qualities are not only present in the final work but are fleshed out in the process of building.” Today Ellen Jewett’s work is achieving a vibrant internet presence and is featured in public and private collections worldwide. She is enthusiastically expanding her studio practice, forever experimenting and meeting the demand of her time and art. For more detailed information on Ellen Jewett’s amazing work, we recommend a visit to her website.
