Note: Contains nudity. Like Christopher mentioned in a past post, “Prue Stent clearly has a favourite colour based on her fascinating photo series.” That same color continues to be a preference in her latest work called “Flush,” co-produced by Clare Longley and Honey Long and commissioned by Sugar Mountain Festival 2016. On the walls of […]
Category: Experimental
Passion and Performance in Christopher Pew’s Surreal Oil Paintings
Note: Contains nudity. In an oil series tilted “8,” Canadian artist Christopher Pew paints shadowy, dystopic scenes imbued with symbolism. Inhabiting the images is a cast of ambiguous characters; stark-nude, masked, and garbed in white, they are bound together by a scarlet scarf, signifying a fidelity of blood and sacrifice in the barren lands. Moving […]
New Living Sculptures by Marie-Lou Desmeules
Using thick layers of paint and plastic, Marie-Lou Desmeules performs “surgery” on her models, turning them into living, ephemeral (and oftentimes grotesque) canvases. With an eye for truth and a touch of satire, she explores identity, beauty, and the public image. Featured here are some of her newest works, which include creative icons such as […]
10 Contemporary Canadian Artists Who Reimagine Frontiers
Canadian art has been historically recognized for its representations of the country’s magnificent landscapes. Near the beginning of the twentieth century, the Group of Seven set out to capture Canada’s cultural spirit by painting the transcendent force of the wilderness. Their work reflects the purity, beauty, and mystery of nature—the mythos of the untameable Canadian […]
Conjurer’s Kitchen: Morbid Cake Creations by Annabel de Vetten
Note: Contains images that may be considered graphic and disturbing to some readers. Annabel de Vetten makes cakes that will appeal to your taste buds while disturbing your imagination. Under the name “Conjurer’s Kitchen,” de Vetten constructs icing-covered baked goods that resemble everything from innocent tiered wedding cakes to writhing tentacles and spilling organs. Using […]
Creepy Crocheted Animal Skeletons by Caitlin McCormack
Caitlin McCormack is a Philadelphia-based artist who crochets delicate skeletons using cotton string stiffened with glue. Her brittle creations—which include birds, small mammals, and bizarre hybrids—resemble archeological specimens, pressed in the earth and decayed by time. They writhe, unravel, and cluster together, embodying both the despair of extinction and the persistence of memory. Images © […]
Motelscape: A Surreal Full-Room Critique of Fantasy and Commodified Desires
As part of last year’s Art Basel Miami Beach, multimedia artists Marina Fini, Signe Pierce, Sierra Grace, and Sydney Krause created “Motelscape,” an otherworldly full-room installation located in a love suite of the Miami Princess Hotel. Every object was specifically designed to convey a sense of replicated and illusory reality, such as the translucent plexiglass […]
Dancing Distortion: Bodily Traces In Frederic Fontenoy’s Photography
In 1988, French photographer Frédéric Fontenoy composed “Metamorphosis,” a series of self-portraits that abstract the body within wild landscapes. Using the analog process with a panoramic camera, he moved (or, as he describes, “danced”) for 2-3 seconds before the lens, transforming his figure into overlapping traces of itself. By dissolving the human figure into a […]
Philip Ob Rey Contructs Giant, Humanoid Omens out of VHS Tape
“Humantropy” is a word coined by artist Philip Ob Rey to describe the decline of civilization in an age of renewed chaos. To explore this concept, Ob Rey constructed spectral giants made out of VHS tape and found natural objects (feathers, stones, and seaweed) and photographed them in the frozen, brooding plains of Iceland. Each […]
10 Rogue Taxidermy Artists Who Create Imaginative Sculptures
The art of taxidermy has been practiced for a long time; the ancient Egyptians embalmed and entombed cats, birds, and other creatures. Over the millennia, animals have been mounted as hunters’ trophies and museum artifacts. It is an odd practice, one that is traditionally pulled between human pride, symbolism, and a desire to memorialize deceased […]