Category Archives: Visuals Arts

Subversively Embroidered Money and Penny Sculptures Question Historical Narratives


Art

#coins
#embroidery
#metal
#money
#politics
#sculpture
#social commentary

March 18, 2021
Grace Ebert

From Insurrection Bills. All images © Stacey Lee Webber, shared with permission
Throughout 2020, Stacey Lee Webber developed Insurrection Bills, a revisionary collection of United States currency overlaid with subversive stitches: flames envelop monuments, a wall is left unfinished, and an eclectic array of face masks disguise Abraham Lincoln’s portrait. Contrasting the muted tones of the paper, the vibrant embroideries stand in stark contrast and as amended narratives to those depicted on the various denominations. “The series references feelings of anger, turmoil, and frustration during the tense political climate while recontextualizing and questioning the beloved iconography we see on our money,” she tells Colossal.
Currently working from her studio and home in Philadelphia’s Globe Dye Works, Webber is formally trained in metalsmithing—she has an MFA from the University of Wisconsin, where she initially began using currency as the basis of her projects—and sees the two mediums as an ongoing conversation. Embroidery “allows me to work in a quieter setting outside of my metal shop acting as a sort of ying to the yang, soft and hard, masculine and feminine,” she says.
Many of Webber’s sculptures involve soldering coins, including the copper penny works that make up The Craftsmen Series and question the value of blue-collar labor in the U.S. Comprised of hollow, life-sized tools, the collection visualizes “putting endless amounts of work into a single cent,” the artist says.
Webber has multiple exhibitions this year, including at TW Fine Art Palm Beach Outpost in April, Philadelphia’s Bertrand Productions in October, and Art on Paper Fair in New York City this November. If you can’t see the currency-based projects in person, head to Instagram, where the artist shares a larger collection of her works and glimpses into her studio.

“Masked Abes,” from Insurrection Bills
From Insurrection Bills
Detail of “Masked Abes,” from Insurrection Bills
A ladder from The Craftsmen Series, soldered pennies
From Insurrection Bills
Jewelry made from coins

#coins
#embroidery
#metal
#money
#politics
#sculpture
#social commentary

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Busts of Unabashed Women by Gerard Mas Are Sculpted with a Contemporary and Cheeky Twist


Art

#busts
#humor
#sculpture

March 18, 2021
Grace Ebert

“Lady of the chewing gum,” polychrome resin. All images © Gerard Mas, shared with permission
Despite their modest clothing and perfectly plaited hair, the women that artist Gerard Mas sculpts are spirited, brazen, and undeniably shameless. Whether blowing a wad of bubblegum, sporting visible tan lines, or unabashedly digging in their noses, the corset-clad figures are steeped in humor and wit and cast a contemporary light on the long-held conventions of the medium.
Mas began the ongoing series a few years ago as he ventured into figurative sculpture and struggled with portraying perfection and beauty. He shares:
This was an impossible job. There was always something that broke that beauty. And a sculpture attempting to speak of beauty with some disproportion or flagrant compositional flaw is pretentious if not ridiculous… I decided to anticipate that failure and deliberately introduce discordant elements that broke that pretended beauty by making our sense of good taste squeak. Let’s say it’s an ode to the impossibility of beauty.
Based near Barcelona, Mas originally trained as a restorer with a focus on reconstructing floral ornaments in architecture. “In my obsession with contemplating the art of other times, I also realized that our current cultural codes prevent us from contemplating the art of the past without reinventing its meaning. We are subjected to an avalanche of daily images that shapes the way we look,” he says. This experience continues to inform his practice that seamlessly melds traditional techniques—his use of standard materials like marble, alabaster, carved wood, gilding, and polychrome, for example—and contemporary subject matter.
If you’re in Madrid, you can see Mas’s sculptures at Estampa from April 8 to 11. Otherwise, peruse a larger collection of his figurative works on his site and Instagram. (via The Jealous Curator)

“Call center lady,” polychrome resin
“Lady of lloret,” polychrome resin
“Lady of the chewing gum”
“Lady of the necklace” (2018), polychrome resin
“Lady of the cactus” (2019), polychrome alabaster
“Lady of the collar”
“Picking nose lady”
“Lady sticking out tongue” (2007), polychrome alabaster

#busts
#humor
#sculpture

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Majestic Photos by Michael Shainblum Frame Yosemite National Park through Rainbow Mist and Thick Fog


Photography

#fog
#landscapes
#rainbows
#snow
#waterfalls

March 17, 2021
Grace Ebert

All images © Michael Shainblum, shared with permission
New photographs by Michael Shainblum (previously) capitalize on the grandeur of Yosemite National Park and cast it in an ethereal light. Shot in winter just after a dusting of snow, the series is serene and dream-like and spotlights the details that sometimes are lost in the vast wilderness: rainbow mist envelops a waterfall, dense fog hangs among a mountain top, and the warm glow of golden hour radiates across a rocky ridge.
Go behind-the-scenes of Shainblum’s visit to Yosemite in this video, and pick up a print in his shop. See more of his candy-colored landscapes and photographs capturing nature’s most majestic features on Instagram.

#fog
#landscapes
#rainbows
#snow
#waterfalls

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