Cannaday Chapman created Flora, the mural seen above, for Hingetown Culture Works in Cleveland, Ohio, in 2018. He has created illustrations for The New York Times, The New Yorker, as well as a Google Doodle for Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
For more of his work also check out his Instagram.
Gentle Ladies Dragon Man, 2021, (Acrylic and graphite on canvas) by Jason Fox was part of the group show Time-Slip at Petzel Gallery in New York in 2021.
This mural was created by Jose Mertz for the 2017 edition of the SHINE Mural Festival in St. Pete, Florida.
For more work by the artist, also check out his Instagram.
“The Flameless Green Dragon”, 2018, Elm and acrylic
“In Rhythm”, 2018, Elm and acrylic; and “Water Music”, 2002, Inkjet photocollage on paper
“Introvert”, 2019, Elm; “Engendering Life”, 2020, Green soapstone
Two left sculptures made of Italian translucent alabaster and “Harboring Emptiness”, 2021, Maple and acrylic
Above are several works from Barbara Stanczak Spirit and Matter, the artist’s recent exhibition at Akron Art Museum. Stanczak’s sculptures are energetic shapes created in partnership with the natural materials used.
From the museum’s web page-
Barbara Stanczak’s sculptures are born from an essential combination: the artist’s creative vision and the natural qualities of her materials. This two-sided collaboration remains in effect throughout Stanczak’s entire process of conceiving and creating an artwork. A piece of wood or stone presents initial possibilities that help to set a direction, but invariably the course will change—the substance may be so hard as to resist carving, or it may contain internal structures that must be accommodated. But the artist does not surrender her own interests, as she has found that a successful work must become the physical embodiment of a rich and valuable idea. In her own words, “I can only hold onto my idea of the whole by letting go of ‘mine’ and focusing on ‘our.’ The material becomes a partner who needs my patience, respect, thoughtfulness, cooperation, skill, and persistence.”
Stanczak committed to working with wood and stone only after a long process of discovery. Born in Germany in 1941, she moved to the United States in 1960 to assist her grandfather in painting church frescoes, and later worked in handmade paper, metal, and a variety of other media. She also worked alongside her husband, Julian Stanczak, whose paintings and prints were celebrated at the Akron Art Museum with a one-artist show in 2013. As her own career evolved throughout her thirty-seven-year tenure as a professor at the Cleveland Institute of Art, Barbara carved her first wooden sculpture in 1992. “I was tired of searching,” she recalls. “It was time to arrive!”
Stanczak continues to find wood and stone compelling because, as she puts it, they are constantly “teasing, tempting, and provoking me to see more, to see beyond, to see the micro and the macro of the universe.” She finds these universal qualities not in immediately recognizable forms like leaves and flowers, but rather in dense rings and layers, subtle features formed over decades or even thousands of years. As Stanczak exercises her own intuition, she aligns it with these natural processes. As the artist and the materials harmonize, it is as if two forms of intelligence are working together—as if spirit and matter are not so separate as one might expect.
Esterio Segura’s Goodbye My Love, 2013, three sculptures created with fiberglass and automobile paint, are currently on view at Tampa Museum of Art.
From the museum about the work-
A new acquisition to the Museum’s permanent collection, Goodbye My Love represents Esterio Segura’s (Cuban, b. 1970) ongoing exploration of the meaning of airplanes and flight. Produced in multiple editions at different scales, this version is nearly the largest. In describing the series, Segura explained, “In this work, the reference to the airplane hybridizes with a reference to another well-known universal symbol: a simplified image of the heart. This is fused with an easily understood title with several meanings, from the most corny and sentimental to the most controversial, from a political and social standpoint. With this work, I reference the experience of uprooting, nostalgia, memory, loss—how we experience the breakdown of everything we love.”
He discusses the work in the video below in a bit more detail.
“1958 Championship Game ( Colts/NY Giants )” by artist Jack Howard-Potter
“Formation of the American Football League (1959)” by artist Katherine Stanek
The sculptures above are two of The ELEVEN, a public art project created by The Pro Football Hall of Fame and Arts in Stark, located in downtown Canton, Ohio. The commissioned art works each represent one of the eleven greatest moments in professional football.
The first sculpture pictured, Colts/NY Giants Championship Game (1958) is by Jack Howard Potter. The 30-foot tall steel sculpture celebrates Baltimore Colts player Raymond Berry.
The second, Formation of the American Football League (1959) is by artist Katherine Stanek. The concrete sculpture represents the founders of the league and the use of television as part of its growth. On a nearby information plaque the artist states that she “wanted to celebrate the AFL founders by putting eight giant heads on top of 1960’s TV sets, as if they were ancient heroes in some Roman ruins”. Stanek also runs her own gallery in Philadelphia.
Black and part Black Birds in America: (Grackle, Cardinal & Rose-breasted Grosbeak), 2020, by Kerry James Marshall, was part of the group exhibition 20/20 at David Zwirner gallery in NYC in December of 2020. The painting is part of a series that explores black identity, his love of birding, and by the history and work of John James Audubon.
Below is an excerpt from a New York Times article about the work and its Audubon connection-
“There’s a disconnect between the house that’s built and the birds,” Mr. Marshall said of the crow and grackle. “It’s not designed for them, you know?” The scene considers, he said, “the pecking order.”
A casual bird enthusiast who has been fascinated by Audubon’s draughtsmanship since he was a child, Mr. Marshall has long put Black protagonists at the center of his complex, richly layered compositions. “Many Mansions” (1994), one of his large-scale depictions of housing projects, features three Black men gardening — and, not incidentally, there are two bluebirds holding up a banner, too. The pointed inclusion of Black figures is part of what he has called a “counter-archive” to the familiar, white-centered story of Western art.
For the new series, the images hinge on Audubon’s own racial heritage: Many people believe he was, as Mr. Marshall’s title suggests, “part Black” — born in what is now Haiti, as Jean Rabin, to a white, plantation-owning father and a Creole chambermaid who may have been of racially-mixed descent. But, the theory goes, he was able to pass as white.
Birds by Detroit based artist Rick Malt in Canton, Ohio. The mural is part of Canton Mural Initiative.
For more work by Malt, also check out his Instagram.
Whimzeyland, the “Bowling Ball House”, is a local landmark located in Safety Harbor, Florida, created by artists Todd Ramquist and Kiaralinda.
About the house from their website–
In 1985, they purchased the beige house on Third Street in Safety Harbor, Florida. They traveled everywhere, actively seeking out inspirational and unusual places. Inspired by these travels, they began transforming their house. One of the earliest additions were the wooden triangles to the eaves of their house. The beige house became bold in color, too.
One day, they went to a flea market and saw a sign that said that anybody could take 10 free bowling balls. They took the bowling balls and began painting and placing them around the property. This is how they became known as the bowling ball house of Safety Harbor.
Todd and Kiaralinda even branched out of decorating their home, creating two different art cars, designed a restaurant, and making public sculptures, among other things. They began calling themselves the Whimzey Twinz because they work together on all of their projects.
Their travels soon included visits to folk artists and artists that they met at their shows. These friends visited them, too. Todd and Kiaralinda’s bowling balls inspired many of them. They would create bowling balls for Todd and Kiaralinda, who got so many of these works from artist friends that they started a gallery in their home. They created a “Call for Balls” which made a lot more of these art works roll into their home. Today, they have over 80 bowling balls from various artists around the world and people still bring them bowling balls as gifts.
If you are in the area, make sure to also stop by Safety Harbor Art and Music Center (SHAMc), a nonprofit they opened in 2017. It has an art gallery and shop, and hosts music events and art classes as well.
Paintings by Tim Wilson from his 2023 solo exhibition, Pictures Aside, at Nathalie Karg gallery in NYC.
From the press release-
“Everything is deceptive, only the mask never lies.”
—Pierre de Marivaux
On the surface, Wilson presents a group of paintings depicting an assortment of mirrored reflections, paintings, prints, photographs, and reproductions. These pictures within the paintings adorn a variety of provisional spaces; foyers, waiting areas, bedside tables, drawing rooms, and motels. Like his previous work, Wilson recasts images of interior spaces and set dressing found in the seemingly endless availability of streaming television and film. These repurposed screen grabs are then filtered through the historical lens of premodern tendencies in representation. This practice, an attempt at slowing the viewer down for reflection remains, yet here, Wilson doubles down by zooming in on the re-depiction of those quoted histories within his own pictures. This reframing literally and metaphorically rearranges the conditions with which one engages in that contemplation.
“To me, the recursive nature of these paintings is analogous to the infinite regress of thought and meaning—in the way that the definition of words require the use of other, yet to be defined, words to describe them, and so on. Painting is a way of re-contextualizing these strange loops and harnessing meaning indirectly. For example, to quote me speaking now in this context is altogether different than the previous paragraph, despite the fact that I wrote them both.”
—Tim Wilson
He is currently showing work at JDJ gallery in Tribeca, for the group exhibition, Feels Like Home, running until 3/2/24.