Photographer Craig Burrows (previously) continues to explore a unique photography method called ultraviolet-induced visible fluorescence that uses high-intensity UV lights to excite fluorescence found in some plants, animals, and various objects. Burrows chooses to focus on flowers, creating colorfully vivid interpretations of jade blooms, daisies, and irises that seem to practically glow from within. You can follow more of his work on Flickr.
First published in the pre-photographic age, Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours was the preeminent guide to color and its classification for artists, scientists, naturalists, and anthropologists in the 19th-century. Without an image for reference, the book provided immense handwritten detail describing where each specific shade could be found on an animal, plant, or mineral. Prussian Blue for instance could be located in the beauty spot of a mallard’s wing, on the stamina of a bluish-purple anemone, or in a piece of blue copper ore.
The system of classification was first devised by German mineralogist Abraham Gottlob Werner in the late 18th-century. Shortly after Scottish painter Patrick Syme updated Werner’s guide, matching color swatches and his own list of examples to the provided nomenclature.
The book’s poetic names, such as Arterial Blood Red, Berlin Blue, and Verdigris Green, added flourish to the writings of many researchers, allowing vivid descriptions for prose which had previously been limited to a more elementary color palette. Charles Darwin even used the guide during his voyage to the Madeira, Canary, and Cape Verde islands on the H.M.S. Beagle.
The 1814 book has now been republished by Smithsonian Books as a pocket-sized guide, providing a historic connection to vivid colors found in the field for a future generation of artists, scientists, and curious naturalists. You can preorder the 2018 hardcover for its release date on February 6, 2018. (via Co.Design)
That the flat Mercator projection maps we encounter in classrooms show a distorted view of our spherical planet is fairly well-known fact at this point. But the real-life application of grids on the earth takes a subtler form with the grid system of roads that defines much of the United States’ travelways. Dutch photographer and filmmaker Gerco de Ruijter created a short film called Grid Corrections that brings together dozens of aerial shots of rural roads. The film demonstrates how the grids are merged to accommodate the earth’s curvature through sharp dogleg turns every 24 miles. Grid Corrections will be screened at the Grasnapolsky music festival, which is February 2 – 4 in the town of Radio Kootwijk, The Netherlands. (via Kottke)
Image by Kevin McElvaney
Last year collaborative artists Claudius Schulze and Maciej Markowicz launched the aptly named project [2BOATS] — a duo of water-bound vessels that the pair steered from Hamburg to Amsterdam’s Unseen Photo Fair and Paris Photo over the course of several months. Both boats serve as traveling studios for the artists, however with vastly different functions. Schulze’s handmade houseboat (with outdoor disco ball and hammock) doubles as a hub for creative workshops and discussions, while Markowicz’s studio is also a fully functioning camera obscura.
Schulze and Markowicz plan to end their journey at the Hamburg Triennale of Photography, which opens on June 7th, 2018. You can keep up with Schulze’s explorations on Instagram at @claudiusschulze, Markowicz’s large-scale camera obscura at @obscurabus, and read about previous events visited by the two photographically-centered boats on the [2BOATS] blog.
Scientist and photographer Igor Siwanowicz (previously) has made a name for himself documenting the phenomenal range of shapes, colors, and structures of creatures in the natural world. His many images of unique caterpillars include wild variations like feathery blue spikes, curling burnt-orange horns, and long black whiskers. Siwanowicz also works as a neurobiologist at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Farm Research Campus in Virginia. He shares more than ten years of his photography on photo.net.
Projection Wall is a floor-to-ceiling installation that produces a series of prismatic sculptures through a visitor-operated pulley system. The large-scale bubbles rise from a grid of rope as the pulley rises, which are then released into to the room by the force of eight fans set behind the soapy contraption.
The participatory work was built by Japanese artist Rintaro Hara for the 2017 Japan Alps Festival. Hara created a similar piece in 1998 titled Soap Opera, an installation inspired by the water-born aliens from the 1989 Sci-Fi Thriller The Abyss. You can see more of Hara’s moving installations (like this Rube Goldberg-inspired piece) on her website and Vimeo. (via Prosthetic Knowledge)
Canadian paper artist Calvin Nicholls (previously) continues to build striking likenesses of wildlife, featuring birds, bears, and foxes rendered in haut-relief sculpture. Despite working in monochromatic palettes of white and off-white paper, he imbues the animal portraits with a sense of liveliness and realism. Innumerable slivers of paper create lifelike feathers and fur, and each creature is shown in a naturalistic pose—snuggled down for a rest, or wings stretched in flight.
Nicholls accepts commercial commissions and some of the works shown below are from a holiday window display for the jeweler David Yurman. You can see a video of the process and installation here, and find more of the artist’s works on his website and Facebook page.
Work in progress
Work in progress
Work in progress
All images © Jonathan Higbee.
For over a decade, photographer Jonathan Higbee has walked the streets of New York with a camera in-hand, spotting extraordinary juxtapositions and unusual moments when the world aligns for a split second in front of his lens. At times he manages to completely erase the boundaries between manufactured imagery found in billboards or signage that pollute the city streets and captures anonymous passersby who seem to live in an alternate reality.
This uncanny talent for observation has made the Missouri-born photographer a rising name in street photography where he won the World Street Photography grand prize in 2015 and a LensCulture 2016 Street Photography Award. Higbee’s work has been exhibited in group shows around the world and his photos were recently included in World Street Photography 4. You can follow more of his photography on Instagram. (via LensCulture)
Turmoil, 2016. Mixed media with pheasant feathers in antique dome. 58 x 43 x 60 cm. All photos by JP Bland
Kate MccGwire‘s roiling feather sculptures juxtapose the beautiful, delicate material with discomfiting shapes. Whereas her earlier work tended toward sprawling installations that oozed and slid toward the viewer, MccGwire’s more recent pieces are tightly wound and displayed within the confines of frames, cabinets, and bell jars.
Although at first glance the incredible colors and patterns seem exotic, the British MccGwire sources all of her feathers dropped feathers provided by farmers, gamekeepers, and pigeon racers. She was originally inspired to begin working with feathers after discovering a local pigeon colony that dropped feathers near her rural art studio. Magpie and mallard feathers gleam an iridescent inky blue, and pheasant feathers sport detailed patterns.
In an interview with Artnews, MccGwire describes her work: “I’m thinking of it as being like an umbilical cord. I want to seduce by what I do—but revolt in equal measure. It’s really important to me that you’ve got that rejection of things you think you know for sure.”
MccGwire is represented by La Galerie Particuliere and Mark Sanders Art Consultancy and exhibits widely; she currently has works in three shows. The artist also shares updates on Facebook and Instagram.
Spill, 2016. Mixed media with magpie feathers. 53 x 93 x 9.5 cm
Spill (detail), 2016. Mixed media with magpie feathers. 53 x 93 x 9.5 cm
Sentient, 2016. Mixed media with goose feathers in bespoke cabinet. 56.5 x 40 x 40 cm
Spate, 2015. Mixed media with pheasant feathers. 127 x 155 x 10 cm
Conundrum, 2017. Mixed media with rooster feathers in bespoke brass vitrine. 100 x 60 x 30 cm
Swathe, 2014. Pigeon tail feathers on archival board. 69 x 69 x 17 cm
Swathe (detail), 2014. Pigeon tail feathers on archival board. 69 x 69 x 17 cm
Sissure: Breach, 2016. Mixed media with goose down and pigeon quills. 55 x 29 x 6 cm
Ethan Murrow (previously) creates large-scale graphite drawings of fictionalized heroes set against the deserted landscape of the American Southwest. His work presents these figures in confusing and illogical acts, a critique that addresses America’s habit of manipulating key moments from historical events.
“Through a mash-up of images,” said Murrow in an artist statement, “I hope to cut away at the neat and tidy narrative of progress and domination and create moments that deal with the abundant misinformation, deep confusion, genuine absurdity and billowing mass that has always kept this country on its toes.”
Murrow currently teaches at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston at Tufts University. He has an upcoming solo exhibition of his monumental drawings at the Currier Museum of Art in the fall of this year. You can see more of his graphite works on his Instagram and website.
Japanese embroidery artist ipnot creates pieces of food and drink that seem to leap off of the fabric and into life. Ipnot enhances the realism of her embroideries by staging them with their real-life inspirations and surroundings, like piles of fluffy rice in a bowl, and slices of stollen crumbling off a miniature fork. Ipnot shares on her website that her grandmother’s embroidery practice inspired her to start, and she uses the needle and thread similarly to the painting technique of stippling. You can see more of the artist’s petite embroideries on Instagram. (via Spoon & Tamago).
Athens-based motion graphics and visual designer Dimitris Ladopoulos uses a series of algorithms to subdivide his favorite works of art, breaking down the color compositions of centuries old paintings in the 3D animation software Houdini. With this process, Ladopoulos digitally observes the palette of Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn‘s Portrait of Johannes Wtenbogaert, in addition to examining the thousands of specific shades used to compose Rembrandt Peale‘s portrait of his daughter Rosalba.
The two digital compositions provide a contemporary view of historical paintings, showcasing how each might be analyzed as a designed object rather than a painted work. You can see more of Ladopoulos’s projects, like this earlier experiment with algorithm-based geometric patterns, on the designer’s website and Behance.
