Two for Tuesday- Public Art- Julian Voss-Andreae’s Sculptures in Palm Springs and Columbus, Ohio

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, California Art Shows, Columbus, Conceptual Art, History, Ohio Art Shows, Palm Springs, Palm Springs Art Shows, Public Art, Quotes, Sculptors / Sculpture
Jul 292025
 

Isabelle, by German sculptor Julian Voss-Andreae is located in Palm Springs, California. Voss-Andreae creates sculptures designed to change their appearance- disappearing at times when viewed at a certain angle. His background in science helped to influence this work when he went on to study art.

Below is a section of his biography from his website-

Prior to his art career, Julian Voss-Andreae studied quantum physics and philosophy at the Universities of Berlin and Edinburgh. As a graduate student at the University of Vienna, Voss-Andreae was one of the small team led by 2022 Nobel Prize Laureate Anton Zeilinger that conducted a ground-breaking experiment in quantum mechanics in 1999. The researchers showed that even molecules as big as C-60 “Buckyballs” can reveal their fundamentally quantum nature under the right conditions. Zeilinger’s group found that a beam of them, passed through a diffraction grating, will exhibit the purely wavelike property of interference. Subsequent experiments showed how interactions with the environment (in the form of infrared photons and background gas of different densities) will gradually wash away the ‘quantum-ness’ thanks to the process of decoherence, which is now recognized as the way the classical world emerges from the quantum.

Our Single Garment of Destiny, (pictured below) is located in  Washington Gladden Social Justice Park in Columbus, Ohio. It was specifically designed for the park and takes its name and inspiration from the Martin Luther King Jr. quote below.

“All [people] are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.  Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”  – Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail (1963)

The video below explains his process when creating the sculptures.

Florida Murals- ILL.DES in Tampa

 Art, Artists, Florida Street Art, Painting / Painters, Public Art, Street Art, Tampa
Jul 252025
 

ILL.DES created this mural in 2022 for Tampa Walls.

About the artist and his work from his website-

ILL.DES (David Fratu) is a Romanian-American abstract artist based in Denver, CO whose work is rooted in geometric shapes and technology. With a background in computer engineering, he brings elements of technology into their art, creating visually striking pieces that represent the balance between chaos and order.

His style is characterized by their use of gradients of color and intricate patterns that create a sense of depth and movement. Their compositions are filled with vibrant colors, geometric shapes, and organic line work. The use of optical illusions and visual effects in their pieces adds to the illusive nature of their work, and is influenced by the op-art movement.

Despite the strong geometric shapes and technological influences, his pieces are not cold or mechanical. Instead, their work reflects the complexities and contradictions of the natural world. The use of symmetry and repetition creates a sense of order, while the use of unexpected shapes and colors adds a sense of chaos and unpredictability. Together, their unique compositions form a perfect equilibrium of harmony and discord.

ILL.DES’s work has been exhibited in galleries in Denver and nationwide, and has received critical acclaim for its ability to blend technology, art, and the exploration of the balance between chaos and order. They continue to push the boundaries of what is possible in the world of geometric abstract art, creating pieces that are both visually stunning and thought-provoking.

Brooklyn Art Shows- Maya Hayuk from “Brooklyn Abstraction: Four Artists, Four Walls” at Brooklyn Museum

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Brooklyn, Installation Art, Mixed Media, New York Art Shows, Painting / Painters, Sculptors / Sculpture
Jul 252025
 

Maya Hayuk is one of the four artists on view in Brooklyn Museum’s Brooklyn Abstraction: Four Artists, Four Walls.  The other artists included are José Parlá, Kennedy Yanko, and the late Leon Polk Smith.

From the museum about Hayuk and this work-

With a diverse practice as a muralist, painter, photographer, gallery founder, and member of several artist collectives, Maya Hayuk has worked internationally to bring vibrancy and movement to urban and exhibition spaces. Weaving layers of paint, she animates walls with what she describes as “perfect imperfection.” These paintings, with their symmetrical organization and brilliantly overlapping colors and drips, are both constructed and improvisational, blurring perceptions of outer and inner space and confronting paradoxes of harmony and dissonance, optimism and hopelessness. Hayuk’s Ukrainian heritage as well as current geopolitical events inspire her to express abstracted physical and psychological landscapes of the war’s front line, simulating the flash points of explosions intersecting with the hope of sunrise.

The exhibition, which takes place on the walls surrounding the museum’s Beaux-Arts Court, remains on view until January 4, 2026.

North Carolina Art- “Liminal” at Center for Craft in Asheville

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Asheville, North Carolina Art Shows, Public Art, Sculptors / Sculpture
Jul 242025
 

Liminal, 2019, was created by North Carolina artists Ian Henderson and Shae Bishop, and is located outside the Center for Craft in Asheville.

From the center and Henderson-

The installation explores the idea of the liminal, or state of being in transition, through the shifting pattern created by this large-scale tessellation of concrete tiles.

“Liminal invites the viewer, even the casual passer-by, to enter that liminal state and feel the vastness of a world pulsing with change and uncertainty.”

– Ian Henderson

Cleveland Museum of Art- Julian Stanczak’s “Filtered Yellow”

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Cleveland, Ohio Art Shows, Painting / Painters
Jul 242025
 

Filtered Yellow, 1968, by Ohio artist Julian Stanczak, is part of Cleveland Museum of Art‘s permanent collection.

From the museum about the artist and the work-

For more than a half century, Julian Stanczak maintained a distinguished career as an abstract painter interested in how vision works. Filtered Yellow features hundreds of alternating reddish and greenish razor-sharp vertical bands that create the illusion of a yellow shape, despite the absence of pure yellow paint. As typical of his work, it emphasizes a high level of technical mastery rivaled by few.

And from the artist’s website about his work-

“My primary interest is color – the energy of the different wavelengths of light and their juxtapositions. The primary drive of colors is to give birth to light. But light always changes; it is evasive. I use the energy of this flux because it offers me great plasticity of action on the canvas. To capture the metamorphoses – the continuous changing of form and circumstance – is the eternal challenge and, when achieved, it offers a sense of totality, order, and repose. Color is abstract, universal – yet personal and private in experience.”

“If I take time to really look at what I’m seeing, there is no limit to the secrets unveiled. I look to nature for clarification and crystallization, for things that I can use in my paintings. I live in the moment of recognition. In search for power through abstract clarity, I select shapes that have the maximum possibility for metamorphic action. We can only see what we understand!”

 

Delaware Art Shows- “Beauty in Unwavering Truths” at John William Gallery in Wilmington

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Delaware, Drawing, Mixed Media, Painting / Painters, Wilmington
Jul 232025
 

Portia Mortensen, “Floating Landscape”, 2025, Colored crayon, acrylic, and oil on canvas

Work by Portia Mortensen

Wes Memeger, “Squares, Circles, Arcs and Lines Together”, 2019, Acrylic on canvas

Wes Memeger, “Homage to Venetians IV”, 2013 (top) and “Homage to Venetians II”, 2012

Haeley Kyong, “Harmonic Progression”, Oil on Canvas

Haeley Kyong, “In Pursuit of Invariable”, Oil on canvas

Currently at John William Gallery in Wilmington is Beauty in Unwavering Truths, an exhibition of geometric art by Portia Mortensen, Wes Memeger, and Haeley Kyong.

From curator Phoebe Caswell-

In a universe of great complexity, sometimes the quiet and simple things can resonate most deeply. The simplest shapes compose the form of many of our most rudimentary understandings of the world, and the laws of geometry are immutable facts that bind the very fabric of our existence. In Beauty in Unwavering Truths, artists Haeley Kyong, Wes Memeger, and Portia Mortensen investigate these fundamentals and highlight the beauty in the simple forms of squares, circles, and diamonds, each finding their unique aesthetic voices through experimentation in color, light, and composition.

Haeley Kyong works particularly in soft pastel colors and keeps her compositions abstract and minimalist. For example, Harmonic Progression, oil on canvas, 30 x 30 x 2 inches, is a mathematical expression of emotion. The painting’s gentle hues of pink and purple accompany the generous use of circles and squares to mimic the mathematical formula of the Fibonacci sequence. The spiraled pattern often appears in nature and is called the “golden ratio” for its aesthetic appeal. Despite its simple components, Kyong takes advantage of the golden ratio to create an aesthetically elevated piece.

The late Wes Memeger took a similar approach to his work, developing abstracted pieces from shapes he became enchanted by through his work as a polymer chemist. Like Kyong and Mortenson, Memeger found beauty in the simplicity of shapes and the evolution of each piece as he created each composition using the eternal geometric models. In his, Squares, Circles, Arcs, and Lines Together, 2019, acrylic on canvas, 72 x 72 inches, Memeger explores luminous warm tones to create a similar depth to his piece as the composition recedes into the background. Austere shapes and a lush monochromatic color palette form the complex pictorial structure.

Portia Mortensen, too, composes her work out of the foundational elements of shape and color. Her use of light and shadow plays with one another to simulate 3D forms in the diamond shapes, producing “spinners.” In Rainbow and Blue Spinners on Checkers, acrylic on canvas, 30 x 40 inches, the simple shapes seem to move on the canvas, the contrasting saturations adding to its depth. Of the three artists, Mortensen adds a stark asymmetry to her work with the roughly sketched diamond shapes to reinforce the beauty of the composed spinners.

Together, the works of Kyong, Memeger, and Mortensen serve as a compelling reminder that complexity is not a prerequisite for profundity. Through their shared focus on elementary shapes and disciplined exploration of light, color, and form, these artists reveal geometry’s quiet elegance and expressive power. Though rooted in the familiar, their pieces transcend the ordinary to evoke wonder, movement, and emotional resonance—showcasing that there is infinite space for artistic discovery within unwavering truths.

This exhibition will be on view until 9/25/25.

SHINE Mural Festival 2019- Taj Tenfold

 Art, Artists, Florida Street Art, Painting / Painters, Public Art, St. Petersburg Street Art, Street Art
Jul 182025
 

Sewing Seas by Jamaican artist Taj Tenfold was created for the 2019 edition of SHINE Mural Festival in St. Pete, Florida.

You can also find her work on Instagram.

Flashback- Delaware Art Shows- Jennifer Small at the Delaware Contemporary and the Mezzanine Gallery in Wilmington

 Architecture, Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, Collage, Conceptual Art, Delaware, Painting / Painters, Wilmington
Jul 182025
 

“Arches Symbolize Growth”, 2024, Acrylic and spray paint on canvas

“Pulse: Contemporary Meets Classical”, 2023, Acrylic and spray paint on canvas

Over this past winter Delaware artist Jennifer Small had two solo exhibitions in Wilmington- Walking in the City at The Delaware Division of the Arts’ Mezzanine Gallery and Facades and Rooftops at The Delaware Contemporary.

For Walking in the City, the paintings (pictured above) capture elements from a single day in Venice, Italy. In Facades and Rooftops, works on paper and laser cut wood panels (a selection of which are pictured below) are based on homes and businesses she observed and photographed on neighborhood walks.

The works in both of these shows capture the fleeting nature of memory and observation, and the fragments that linger- juxtaposing these elements in unique ways.

Here’s what she says in her Artist Statement about the work (from her website)-

My art, initially abstract in appearance, records a journey of a day in the life—a practice that starts with documentation through the lens of a camera. I see my experiences through special goggles with the ability to transform banal spaces and objects into engaging formal elements that are pulled out of their environment and placed into my painting compositions strictly for their aesthetic significance. The process of cataloging my everyday leads to the solidification of my memories in a specific time and place and constant access to a breadth of inspiration for my paintings. New inspiration comes out of each new environment I experience whether as a resident or a visitor allowing the work to be an ever-evolving documentation of my days.

The observations I collect are combined into compositions through a process of drawing and collage where I am selecting and joining bits of each sighting to build abstract structures in imagined worlds displaying a combination of shallow and deep space. The work demonstrates loose, painterly applications juxtaposed with more rigid, hard-edge areas of the acrylic paint and spray paint that I use. While the palette is imagined, each painting is an archive of a time and place connected to a personal experience.

I want to challenge the viewer to see the work as personal yet universal. A compilation of my experiences, but also as a way to connect with abstract painting in a tangible way. I want to elevate the humble from unnoticed and small to colorful and grand by putting a spotlight on the unrecognized poetry of daily routine.

For more information, Small also recently joined fellow artist Kat Collins to discuss her process on the podcast The Artist is In.

Video Games- “Kentucky Route Zero” by Cardboard Computer

 Animation, Architecture, Art, Artists, Books, Conceptual Art, Design, Digital Art, Drawing, Illustration, Music, Musicians / Bands, Quotes, Video and Film, Video Games
Jul 162025
 

Kentucky Route Zero  is a point-and-click adventure game created by Jake Elliott, Tamas Kemenczy, and musician Ben Babbitt working together as Cardboard Computer. Started in 2011 with Kickstarter funding, it contains five parts and four interludes that were released over several years, with the final section completed in 2020.

The game begins with a truck driver named Conway arriving at a highway gas station with his dog. He is having trouble finding the address he was given for his delivery. From there you travel with him over various roads, an underground highway, and eventually even by boat. Along the way you stop at museums, an abandoned mine, local bars, an odd office building, a cave filled with bats, and more while meeting several of the area’s residents. You can choose to learn more about the characters and often join them to explore locations. The story unfolds with no sense of urgency and you are often given the choice to move on or to stay and explore further.

Filled with magical realist elements, it is often a world that can still feel depressingly familiar. Most of the characters are struggling in some way with the effects a failing economy, something that feels even more relevant since 2020. But there are also glimmers of hope in the ways the characters show up for each other- adapting, creating, and forming communities.

Below are a few selections from the game’s interludes that provide engaging breaks from the main story.

In Limits and Demonstrations three characters visit an art museum. You can check out several artworks including- Overdubbed Nam June Paik installation in the style of Edward Packard, which pays homage to Nam June Paik’s 1963 work, Random Access.

Scenes from The Entertainment– a play directed by one of the characters-

One of the phones from Here and There Along The Echo– you dial the number and the character Will (played by musician Will Oldham) reads information from the Echo River’s Bureau of Secret Tourism.

Scenes from Un Pueblo De Nada take place at the public access station- you can also find a live action version here.

Kentucky Route Zero is a game that stays with you long after it finishes. There are lots of things to discover and it’s worth playing more than once to find them. The website Highway Zero is good for things you may have missed.

The game is available for purchase on their website and can also currently be found on Netflix.

 

Flashback-NYC Public Art- Ai Weiwei- “Arch”

 Art, Art Shows by Location, Artists, New York Art Shows, Public Art, Sculptors / Sculpture, Seattle, Washington
Jul 112025
 

Ai Weiwei‘s Arch, pictured above, was part of his 2017 multi-site exhibition Good Fences Make Good Neighbors. The exhibition was curated by Public Art Fund and took place in several parts of New York City. This work was located in Washington Square Park.

About the exhibition from Public Art Fund’s website-

Ai Weiwei conceived this multi-site, multi-media exhibition for public spaces, monuments, buildings, transportation sites, and advertising platforms throughout New York City. Collectively, these elements comprise a passionate response to the global migration crisis and a reflection on the profound social and political impulse to divide people from each other. For Ai, these themes have deep roots. He experienced exile with his family as a child, life as an immigrant and art student in New York, and more recently, brutal repression as an artist and activist in China. The exhibition draws on many aspects of Ai’s career as a visual artist and architect, and is informed by both his own life experience and the plight of displaced people. In 2016, Ai and his team traveled to 23 countries and more than 40 refugee camps while filming his documentary, Human Flow.

“Good fences make good neighbors” is a folksy proverb cited in American poet Robert Frost’s Mending Wall, where the need for a boundary wall is being questioned. Ai chose this title with an ironic smile and a keen sense of how populist notions often stir up fear and prejudice. Visitors to the exhibition will discover that Ai’s “good fences” are not impenetrable barriers but powerful, immersive, and resonant additions to the fabric of the city.

Seattle Art Museum is currently showing Ai, Rebel: The Art and Activism of Ai Weiwei, his first US retrospective in over a decade. The exhibition “highlights the artistic strategies of his 40-year career for questioning forms of power”. It will be on view until 9/7/2025.

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