paper botanicals

Mary Delany, Crinum Zeylanicum: Asphodil Lilly,
a paper collage, 1778 (via The British Museum)

The lovely and precise paper collage, or as she called them 'mosaicks' depicting various botanical illustrations by Mary Delany were recently brought to people's attention by Molly Peacock's book The Paper Garden: Mrs. Delany Begins Her Life's Work At 72. She wished her work to ressemble dried flowers, and was so successful that some could be mistaken for actual specimen. Peacock describes a woman who in fact invented an entirely new artistic (or scientific illustration) medium, very late in life. Describing her method in a letter to her niece, dated October 4th, 1772, Delany wrote: “I have invented a new way of imitating flowers”.

Mary Delany, Magnolia Grandiflora (Polyandria Polygynia),
the grand Magnolia. 1776

Delany used hand-tinted tissue paper to create 1700 of these paper cuts, working until the age of 88, when her eyesight failed. She worked with plant specimen, and it is believed she dissected them to better observe their detailed anatomy; her works carefully reproduce petals, stamens, calyx, leaves, veins, stalk and other parts of the plant in hundreds of tiny layered pieces of paper, generally against a black background. She lived in a time where there was a revolution in botanical knowledge, a great passion for gardening, and no photography. The intersection of botany and art played an important role in contemporary descriptive science, and Mrs. Delany became a major botanical artist. (via Things that quicken the heart).

Mary Delany, Pancratium Maritinum (Hexandria Monogynia),
Sea Daffodil. 1778

Mary Delany, Vicia Cracca (Diadelphia Decandria),
Tufted vetch

Mary Delany, Iris Susiana, Chalcedonian. 1781

Anandamayi Arnold is a contemporary San Francisco-based artist who makes paper 'surprise balls', a desceptively simple medium: she wraps trinkets and ephemera in layer upon layer of crepe paper, to build up gorgeous, three-dimensional botanical objects. She calls them 'three dimensional trompe l'oeil'. Aya Brackett has photographed Arnold's work in a way which clearly alludes to Mary Delany's work, against a dark background, showing these objects to be more than paper and toys, but a sort of continuation of the paper botanical illustration tradtion, tracing all the way back to the late 18th century and Delany's pioneering work. Further, she's playing with the ideas of the ephemeral and permanance, since these objects are at least nominally built so that someone could unravel them to find the toys inside.

Anandamayi Arnold, Paper Passion Fruit (photograph by Aya Brackett)

Anandamayi Arnold, Paper Pomegranate (photograph by Aya Brackett)

Anandamayi Arnold, (photograph by Aya Brackett)

Anandamayi Arnold, Kumkuat branch, 2012 (photograph by Aya Brackett)

Anandamayi Arnold, paper botanicals photograph by Aya Brackett

Anandamayi Arnold, paper botanicals photograph by Aya Brackett

Whale Fall

Whale Fall (after life of a whale) from Sharon Shattuck on Vimeo.

Directed by Sharon Shattuck and Flora Lichtman for Sweet Fern Productions.

This beautiful short film (paper puppetry, by the way, not stop-motion) details the after-life of a whale. I don't mean it's about the ghost of a whale; I mean it details quite literally the life supported for decades, by the deceased body of a whale. The choices made in terms of medium (paper) and music, help emphasize the wonder of the ecology, the diversity of life supported, and avoids the sort of bias we may have that the subject matter is somehow gruesome, rather than the most natural thing. I love the idea of paper puppets employed in, essentially, a short of science documentary.

Sharon Shattuck describes herself as a "director-animator and botanist", so it makes sense that she would make art about science. (via Bioephemera)

I am familiar with several of these critters from research cruises where we've employed remotely operated submersibles. The rattails are always the most common thing we see on the seafloor.

If you are interested in the ecological afterlife of animals which fall to the seafloor, you can check out, for instance, the VENUS pig experiment, where a dead pig was placed on the seafloor and monitored with a cabled seafloor observatory, offshore Vancouver Island.

Quilling Anatomy

Head and Torso
2010
mulberry paper
9 x 13 x 1 inches


Artist Lisa Nilsson combines the Mideval art of paper quilling and modern antomical science in her incredibly detailed (and accurate) assemblages. Using long strips of Japanese kozo, or mulberry paper, and strips of gilded book pages, she uses a variety of tools to curl pages into the right shapes to represent all the tissues in our bodies. I know that kozo is wonderfully strong, but it also comes in a large variety of colours, which makes it a versitile medium. She says she was inspired to start using quilling as a technique after finding a reliquary; the earliest quiller were nuns who started using the gilded edges of bibles as a creative medium.


Female Torso
2010
paper
9 x 10 x 3/4 inches


Thorax
2011
paper
21 1/2 x 12 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches


Abdomen
2011
paper
15 x 12 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches


The detailed photos give you a sense of the meticulous work involved.


Profile (detail)
2011
paper
A detail of "Profile" showing the sinuses, front teeth and tongue.



Head II (detail)
2011
A detail of "Head II" showing a cross section of the brain.

She explains that she uses gilded paper to tie her work to religious reliquaries and a little less to scientific specimen, but I cannot help but see this work also as beautiful and creative medical illustration.

Be sure to check out her other work in her portfolio.

Also, for another take on quilling human anatomy, check out the work of Sarah Yakawonis.

(via Craft, all things paper and artsake)

Ceramic Stream-of-Conciousness

This post is about contemporary ceramic art. We have flowered heads, experimental, rococo and occasionally lit anatomy, and gas masks as recurring themes. Honestly.

Peruvian-born sculptor Emil Alzamora works in NY state. On his site you'll find sculptures in other media as well. I love the play between the traditional motifs or methods and the contemporary subjects. Embonpoint in particular reminds me of Julie Moon (who we'll get to). See more in his portfolio.


Mother & Child 5 ceramic 18" x 20" x 12", 2009


Embonpoint ceramic 9" x 7.5" x 7.5" 2007


Toxiconomist ceramic 11"x8"x5", 2008

The gas-mask leads us to American artist Kate MacDowell, whose rococo sculptures with elements from anatomy and natural (or unnatural?) history, combined in unexpected and surreal ways, like this mama bunny in a gas mask:


First and Last Breadth


Solastalgia

According to wikipedia, Solastalgia is a neologism coined by the Australian philosopher Glenn Albrecht in 2003 with the first article published on this concept in 2005. It describes a form of psychic or existential distress caused by environmental change, such as mining or climate change.


Venus

I also enjoy the multi-media, light coming from the (ceramic) heart (with exra venus flytraps) in Venus. Follow the link to her portfolio.

Local Toronto artist Julie Moon (now also re-located to NY) is one of my favorites. I have not one, but two brooches she created and met her once at one of the MADE shows at the Gladstone. One of the brooches is an antomically correct white ceramic heart with a floral pattern, like the one illustrated; I love the contrast of the internal organ with the feminine flowers, like those you might expect on fine china. A colleague once said he thought it was pretty but actually it's gross. I think he's wrong, and it's beautiful, but that tension between dainty and blattant is part of the appeal.

She also has the mixed-media, including ceramics with lights, the surreal anatomy and flowered heads like those we see above. Check out her extensive portfolio.

Hooves

Check our German artist/designer Iris Schieferstein's portfolio. The hoof shoes and Gun Hoofs are only the beginning. {via design-milk.}

Balloon Twins

Not just art and science, let's add some balloons today!
Like superheroes whose power is to create immense, inflated, jellyfish creatures, today I bring you not one, but two sculptors-of-unexpected-media: the balloon.

Jason Hackenwerth lives and works in NYC, creating ephemeral inflated sculptures evocative of botany or biology, or just plain sexuality, their eventual deflation mirroring life's transience too. The wiggling, jiggling, wearable sculptures are pretty hilarious.









Meanwhile, in Chicago, artist Willy Chyr ties his balloon sculptures a little more literally to anatomy, perhaps because he is a physicist by training (or more specifically physicist-economist-circus worker-sculptor). He writes that he is inspired by nature, rather than mimicking it - everything from bioluminescence to consciousness. Consider the comb jelly, installed in the Biological Sciences Learning Center, Chicago, IL, April-May 2009:

His website states:

It was inspired by the ctenophore, or comb jelly - a small marine animal characterized by having eight rows of cilia along its body, which scatter light to create a moving rainbow pattern.

The Comb Jelly consists of over 500 balloons, 81 LEDs, and took over 30 hours to build.

You might recall, magpie & whiskeyjack featured some footage of the bioluminescent comb jelly back in February. Follow the link if you would like to see the natural inspiration for this sculpture.

Or the Hydroida, another jelly:


Neuroplastic Dreams is a bit more poetic, evoking the "neuron forest".


Balluminescence - Lights, Balloons, Jellyfish! engaged the audience in making balloon jellyfish at Science Chicago's Labfest. I love the idea of marrying art and science, balloons and LEDs and involving the public! Now that's amazing job he's invented for himself.

Sculpting about the Economy

This photo of Chinese sculptor Chen Wenling's “What You see Might Not Be Real," comes via the Wall Street Journal of all places. This is because the bull represents Wall St and the man is Bernie Madoff. The sculpture is a critique of the financial crisis. It helps to know that fang pi in Chinese is both "to fart" and slang for "to lie".


“What You see Might Not Be Real"

A lot of satire, some surrealism, and many pigs can be found in his work.


Chen Wenling, The God of Material, 2008 Sculpture, Fiberglass, 200 x 365 x252cm presented by Xin Dong Cheng Gallery


Uninvited Guest, 2008.


“Valiant Struggle No. 10″, 2006


"Happy Life No. 8"


Sunny Boy


Happy Life No. 3

Other Hagiographies

The word hagiography makes me think of Robertson Davies. It is the study of saints. These are saints of a different sort.

First, Steve Seeley's woodland sort of hagiography.






{psst... you really should also check out his extensive portfolio... it's not all sainted animals, sometimes it's superheroes, aliens, antlers, rainbows, creative anatomy and more, via je voudrai que}.

If robots and aliens are more you style, io9 has an entire gallery of Star Wars Saints.

Empire by Scott Erickson


Imperial Saints by Patrick King


Pope Yoda from La Nuova Figurazione Italiana

These remind me of a photo I took at Nuit Blanche in Toronto 2007 of the modern day pièta with E.T. and animatronic Yoda: