Tag Archives: Sculpture

The Beautiful Brain

Katharine Dowson’s inspiration comes from nature, medicine and the scientific world as she often collaborates with scientists as part of her artistic practice. These include researchers investigating genetics, dyslexia and Parkinson’s disease, producing intricate casts of her own heart and brain from MRI scans. Her sculptures are made in various media but especially transparent materials and glass, which she uses as a metaphor for a membrane, a fragile yet robust skin that allows light to pass through and reveal the hidden interior within.

Richard Paton: Exploring Magnetism as a Metaphor for Humanity’s Disconnect with Nature.

As one of the four fundamental forces in physics it has been harnessed to shape our modern world of electronics and how we interact with each other. For the last four years Fine Artist Richard Paton has explored various enigmatic aspects of magnetism and completed an MA in Art & Science at UAL in 2020. By researching Geomagnetism and Magneto Reception Paton’s artwork looks at how magnetism can be seen as a metaphor revealing a fundamental human disconnection with the earth itself and the animal’s which inhabit the natural world.
In recent pieces he tackles some of the most pressing issues of our times such as habitat degradation and species extinction which draw upon the evolution of the compass, mechanical automata and interactive electronics.

Jason deCaires Taylor’s Underwater BioCulture Sculpture at the Museo Atlantico, Lanzarote Island

A leading figure in art and ecology, John K. Grande is author of a range of books that include ‘Balance: Art and Nature’ and ‘Art Space Ecology’. In this article he discusses the work of sculptor and environmentalist, Jason deCaires Taylor, in particular his major project Museo Atlantico, a collection over 300 submerged sculptures and architectural forms in Lanzarote, Spain, the first of its kind in European waters. His pioneering public art projects are not only examples of successful marine conservation, but works of art that seek to encourage environmental awareness, instigate social change and lead us to appreciate the breathtaking natural beauty of the underwater world.

Washed Up

Alejandro Durán collects the international trash washing up on the Caribbean coast of Mexico and transforms it into aesthetic yet disquieting art works that wake us to the threat of plastic pollution. Through photography and installation, his long-term project “Washed Up: Transforming a Trashed Landscape” examines the fraught intersections of man and nature, revealing the pervasive impact of consumer culture on the natural world. He also engages audiences through community-based environmental art-making and speaking engagements.

The Camille Diaries: New Artistic Positions on M/otherhood, Life and Care

The exhibition and the symposium ‘The Camille Diaries: New Artistic Positions on M/Otherhood, Life and Care’ (at ArtLaboratoryBerlin) presents new artistic works by eleven international artists:- Sonia Levy, Mary Maggic, Naja Ryde Ankarfeldt, Baum & Leahy, Špela Petric, Margherita Pevere, Ai Hasegawa, Nicole Clouston, Cecilia Jonsson and Tarah Rhoda. Under the current conditions of our world (the environmental crises, gender aspects, biopolitics, etc.), the artists reflect the term “motherhood” in a greatly expanded form, namely as a ‘taking care of’, as an interpersonal relationship.

Ancient Ritual in Contemporary Mark-Making

“The power of the natural world, its intrinsic energy and fundamental properties, is dependent upon a fine balance. The balance of positive and negative forces resides from the smallest particles that make up our universe to concepts we live with every day: night/day and dark/light; finite/infinite and one/zero; quiet/loud and soft/hard; organic/manmade and the natural environment as opposed to the constructed cities. My work has been centered on concepts of this balance of opposites, as well as methods of numerical systems and patterning we use to construct an order to our world.”

Catherine Eaton Skinner’s works incorporate painting and encaustic, sculpture, printmaking, and photography. The figure, both human and animal, is an important element in her work and acts as a source of inspiration and exploration of identity, spirit and the paradoxes of human existence. She discusses her life and work in ‘Ancient Ritual in Contemporary Mark-Making’.

Invented Biology

“I dye, paint and stitch silk and wool to create boldly colored biomorphic wallhangings inspired by microscopic/cellular imagery – a kind of visual invented biology with textiles.”

Fiber artist, Karen Kamenetzky, creates a kind of ‘invented biology’, inspired by microscopic and cellular imagery, with works zooming in on that fundamental nature of things and bringing it into vision. She works loosely from sketches but each piece travels a route of evolution and change.

Cellular Papercuts

“All the sculptures I make are either hand or laser cut from layers of paper and then hand mounted to create three dimensional structures……..It is also a material perfectly adapted to describe the complexity of the natural world as it embodies the paradoxical qualities that we find in nature: its fragility and durability, its strength and delicacy.”

Inspired by the narratives of scientific discovery and innovation that increasingly dominate contemporary culture, Rogan Brown’s work is an attempt by a non-scientist, an outsider, to visualize, comprehend and assimilate these new ideas and new ways of seeing the world, whether it’s to do with our changing perception of bacteria or the paradigm shifts in our comprehension of the physical world that emerge from quantum physics.

Exploring the microscopic

Artist Klari Reis is best known for her Petri Dish series, a multicolour set of circular blobs created using a blend of media and ground-breaking techniques. The core of her approach is the transformation and pigmentation of a UV-resistant plastic, the epoxy polymer, into unique and cutting edge artworks. She uses the tools and techniques of science in her creative process, constantly experimenting with new ways to apply materials and methods. She is driven by curiosity and her desire to explore and document the natural and unnatural with a sense of wonder and joy.