Tag: Art

Julie Heffernan likens her paintings to “advent calendars gone haywire.” Working in oil on canvas, the Brooklyn-based artist renders vast dreamworlds with tiny vignettes scattered across wider landscapes. Appearing from a distant or aerial perspective, the pieces envision the possibilities of life after fires, floods, and other climate disasters and potential opportunities for emerging anew. Grand in scale and scope, the intricate paintings bear titles like “Self Portrait as Emergency Shipwright” and “Self Portrait with Sanctuary,” which nod to the personal details within each work. More Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts p

An enormous, cascading installation of crocheted fabric strips stretches across a cavernous gallery in Ernesto Neto’s newest exhibition. At MAAT in Lisbon, the Brazilian artist (previously) presents Nosso Barco Tambor Terra, which translates to “our boat drum Earth,” a solo exhibition encompassing one of the largest suspended sculptures he has ever made. Created with a team of assistants in his expansive Rio de Janeiro studio, the new piece draws on images of sails and maritime materials like canvas and rope. More Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member

Through ancient wooded glens and along rugged sea coasts, Max Naylor invites us to wander along shady passageways, squeeze between lichen-cloaked boulders, and inhale the fragrance of wildflowers. His detailed landscapes in ink and oil paint (previously) capture petals, branches, waves, and an array of botanicals in dreamlike scenes that teeter elegantly on the edge of reality. Time of day is often indeterminate in Naylor’s paintings, where blue may suggest nighttime or just the shade cast below the cover of trees. More Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month.

New Yorkers are known for their unwavering devotion to the city, but would they want to spend eternity inside one of its once-ubiquitous taxis or worse yet, in the body of a wildly resilient subway rat? In Celestial City at Superhouse, Ghanaian artist Paa Joe presents a sculptural ode to the Big Apple by carving an oversized rendition of the fruit, a Heinz ketchup bottle, a bagel with schmear, and more urban icons. More Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article

From elaborate hairstyles to hypertrophied mushrooms, an array of unexpected face coverings feature in Ewa Juszkiewicz’s portraits. Drawing on genteel likenesses of women primarily from the 18th and 19th centuries, the artist superimposes fabric, bouquets of fruit, foliage, and more, over the women’s faces. In a collateral event during the 60th Annual Venice Biennale, presented by the Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso and Almine Rech, Juszkiewicz presents a suite of works made between 2019 and 2024 that encapsulate her precise reconception of a popular Western genre. More Do

Get ready for an art event unlike any other. The Other Art Fair presented by Saatchi Art returns to ZeroSpace in Brooklyn from May 16 to 19. With each new fair comes new experiences, and this edition is no different as it unveils a vibrant roster of fresh artwork, new talents, and unexpected delights. This May installment promises an array of exciting features, including 120+ independent artists set to showcase their collections, the 10th edition of Mike Perry and Josh Cochran’s “Get Nude, Get Drawn” portrait experience, complimentary hand-crafted whisky cocktails (exclusively for those aged 21+) on Thursday’s Opening Night, and live performances on both Opening Night and the highly anticipated Friday Late soirée. More Do sto

As John Koening writes in The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, the term sonder refers to “the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—an epic story that continues invisibly around you.” This profound feeling reveals itself in Tony Van Le’s street photography, circling around the meaningful coincidences that he captures instantaneously. Le is fueled by serendipity and strangeness. More Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article

Anyone who’s tried to untangle a ball of yarn understands that fibers have a habit of knotting in ways that can seem impossible to unwind. These twisting, interlaced qualities ground much of Tali Weinberg’s fiber-based work as she pulls at the individual threads of our changing climate, using abstract weavings and textile sculptures to explore the inextricable nature of the crisis and the necessity for human intervention. The Illinois-based artist begins with data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that she translates into visual works using organic and synthetic materials. More Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as li

Written in blocky, bright typography, “We hold these truths to be self-evident” wraps the top of the neoclassical facade of the U.S. Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale. The opening lines from the Declaration of Independence greet visitors to the groundbreaking exhibition the space in which to place me by artist Jeffrey Gibson, the first Indigenous artist to represent the U.S. with a solo exhibition. A member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and Cherokee descent, Gibson has established a distinct visual language that incorporates psychedelic color palettes, text, graphic forms, and various materials with references to Indigenous life, queer culture, literature, music, and more. More

Thirteen bronze women in wide pannier skirts stand single file in St. Mark’s Square in central Venice. The large-scale installation is the work of Spanish artist Manolo Valdés and on view for the 60th Venice Biennale. Known for recontextualizing the iconic figures, colors, and textures throughout Western art history, Valdés once again pulls from well-known source material for Las Meninas a San Marco as he reinterprets the subjects of Diego Velázquez’s 1656 painting “Las Meninas,” or “The Ladies-in-waiting.” Led by the monumental “Infanta Margarita” who stands at the center of the original painting, the trailing figures are “Reina Mariana,” a nod to the infanta’s mother framed in a portrait in the background of Velzázquez’s work.