Smithsonian Announces Eye-Opening Finalists of Their 14th Annual Photo Contest

© Michael B. Hardie. All rights reserved. All photos courtesy Smithsonian.

Smithsonian just released the 70 finalists for their 14th annual photo contest and is currently accepting votes for their Readers’ Choice award. This year Smithsonian received some 48,000 submissions from photographers in 146 countries and territories from which they selected finalists in 7 categories: Natural World, The American Experience, Travel, People, Altered Images, Mobile, and Sustainable Travel. Selected here are some of our favorites, but you can see the rest and vote for your favs on their website.

© Lina Samoukova. All rights reserved.

© Sharon Castellanos. All rights reserved.

© Liam Wong. All rights reserved.

© rekha Bobade. All rights reserved.

© Luis Henry Agudelo Cano. All rights reserved.

© vickson dasan. All rights reserved.

© Pier Luigi Dodi. All rights reserved.

Mirage: A Suburban American House Retrofitted with Mirrors Reflects the Mountainous California Desert

Scenes From Classic Westerns Reimagined With Female Cowboys as the Subjects

Julia Dean in “Giant”, 2013. Oil on canvas, 54″ x 68″.

Angered by the gendered division perpetually seen in classic Western films, painter Felice House decided to create her painted series Re-Western. The collection of works are a re-imagining of her favorite Western films cast with female leads instead of the traditional male cowboys, painting females in place of actors such as James Dean, John Wayne, or Clint Eastwood. The women in her paintings are strapped with shotguns riding horses, fiercely looking out onto a deserted plain, and strongly staring into the eyes of the audience clad in plain button-downs and bright red cowboy boots.

“The western movie tradition is so established; so accepted, so mythologized that it spans the globe,” said House to Colossal. “I love the genre, and at the same time when I sit down to watch a Western movie, I start to feel angry. For the most part, the roles in Westerns are totally inaccessible to me.”

Deciding to start a conversation with this frustration, House choose to paint these reimagined Westerns to ask straightforward questions to a society that continuously handed over these roles to males. House seeks to ask what society would be like with this imagined reversal—how would education be changed? What would our reestablished priorities look like with females as the lead role?

Liakesha Dean in “Giant”, 2013. Oil on canvas, 36″ x 48″.

Julia Dean Portrait, 2013. Oil on canvas, 24″x 20″.

“I would argue that in today’s culture portraying women without objectifying them is an intentional and political act,” said House. “The art historical and current cultural norm is to portray women to extol their sexual beauty and to encourage possessiveness. For centuries men have painted images of women for men. Now that women have access to education and training, women are painting women as we see ourselves.”

House uses her female gaze and voice to create strong, female heroes in environments we all know, reestablishing our connection to the well-known historical settings. Working with the idea of a hero, House paints her portraits larger than life. She encourages the viewer to look up and become dwarfed by the women and their power, hoping this change in physical perspective might encourage a change in mental perspective as well.

Several of House’s female portraits are currently in the group exhibition Sight Unseen at Abend Gallery in Denver through March 25. Pieces from her Re-Western series will be included the upcoming exhibition Woman as Warrior at the Zhou B Art Center in Chicago in August. You can see more of her work on her website and Instagram. (via The Creators Project)

Karan and Nanc in Open Range, 2015. Oil on canvas, 36″ x 60″.

Virginia Eastwood in “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”, 2013. Oil on canvas, 62″ x 80″.

Rebekah Wayne in True Grit (Study), 2014. Oil on canvas, 30″ x 24″.

Krimmie Wayne in “The Searchers”, 2013. Oil on canvas, 60″ x 40″.

Liakesha Cooper in “High Noon”, 2013. Oil on canvas, 36″ x 48″.

Virginia Wayne Portrait, 2013. Oil on canvas, 30″ x 24″.

Stasha Dean in “Giant”, 2013. Oil on canvas, 90″ x 60″.

A Contemporary Art Double-Feature at the Currier Museum of Art (Sponsor)

Charles Clary, Meticulous Excavations Movement #3 (detail), 2017, hand-cut paper and acrylic on panel, dimensions variable, courtesy of the artist, © Charles Clary. Installation in progress for BioLath by Soo Sunny Park at the Currier Museum of Art. Photo by Elias Popa.

Innovative artists can create remarkable objects from simple materials, such as paper, construction supplies, and light. These elements combine in experimental fashion in two new contemporary exhibitions at the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, N.H.

Deep Cuts: Contemporary Paper Cutting examines a re-energized art form dating back to ancient China. The exhibition showcases inventive objects made from cut and manipulated paper, ranging from large-scale installations to detailed diminutive works. The objects explore a wide range of thought-provoking subjects.

Soo Sunny Park, a New Hampshire-based artist, has created a new work of art, BioLath, which immerses visitors in a dynamic, light-filled space. Occupying an entire gallery of the Currier Museum, the artist works with construction materials to filter and refract natural and artificial light.

Deep Cuts is on view until May 21. BioLath is on view until August 6.

Architect Ricardo Bofill’s Abandoned Cement Factory Residence and Studio

In 1973 Spanish architect Ricardo Bofill stumbled upon a cement factory in Catalonia, Spain, an enormous compound of silos and buildings that covered nearly two and a half miles of underground tunnels. Bofill decided to buy The World War I era structure and its grounds, making modifications to the original structure in order to create an all-inclusive live/work space that would unite the Surrealist, Abstract, and Brutalist elements found in its industrial form.

Original construction to transform the sprawling series of buildings took a little over a year and a half. After the dust cleared from the jack hammers and dynamite, Catalan craftsmen worked to add gardens and purpose back into the abandoned compound. Today the factory holds a cathedral, model workshop, archive rooms, residence, and studio, a workspace for Bofill’s firm spread over four floors in the factory’s silos and connected by a spiral staircase.

Despite over forty years in the making, the entire project is constantly evolving and is one that Bofill never sees as being fully completed. With continuous tweaks, Bofill has created a perfectly programmed existence, a ritualized lifestyle that goes against his previously nomadic early life.

“I have the impression of living in a precinct, in a closed universe which protects me from the outside and everyday life,” said Bofill on his website. “The Cement Factory is a place of work par excellence. Life goes on here in a continuous sequence, with very little difference between work and leisure.”

You can see more images of the garden-covered structures on Bofill’s website, and see a short Nowness documentary on his studio and residence below. (via Designboom)

New Geometric Paper Cats and Other Creatures by Estudio Guardabosques

Estudio Guardabosques (previously) is a Buenos Aires-based design and illustration studio consisting of Carolina Silvero and Juan Nicolás Elizalde. The duo create a wide range of paper objects for editorial, artistic, and personal experimentation, each infused with geometric flair and a cheeky sense of humor. Seen here are a number of projects from the last year or so including an installation titled Gatos Furiosos featuring a group of ambivalent felines as they destroy an entire city that was built for the Furious Drawing Festival.

You can see more of Estudio Guardabosques’ work on Instagram and Behance.

Handmade Ceramic Blooms and Succulents by Owen Mann

Self-taught artist Owen Mann creates ceramic blooms from dozens, and sometimes hundreds of petals, each hand-formed to mimic the appearance of peonies, dahlias, and spiraling succulents. Simply painted in cool shades of blues and greens, the porcelain flowers look as if they were freshly plucked from the garden. You can see more of Mann’s faux flora on his Instagram, and purchase the pieces on his Etsy shop. (via So Super Awesome)