Archaeologists Uncover Children?s Hand and Foot Prints in What?s Thought to Be the Oldest Cave Art To Date

   7 hours ago  |  ThisIsColossal

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Flora and Fauna Intertwine with Strands of Hair in Miho Hirano?s Dreamy Portraits

   16 Sep 00:00:15  |  ThisIsColossal

Wrapped within the piecey curls surrounding Miho Hirano‘s subjects are twigs, vine fragments, and clusters of pink blossoms. Using a cool color palette tinged with blues, the Japanese artist (previously) paints ethereal, introspective portraits of women enveloped in movement whether through small fish swimming around their torsos or branches growing from under their hair. Hirano tells Colossal that she tends to center her oil-based works around finding harmony and the inevitability of change, particularly in relation to life’s fragile nature. More

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Evoking Childhood Nostalgia, Color and Cartoon Commotion Burst from Kayla Mahaffey?s Paintings

   16 Sep 00:00:14  |  ThisIsColossal

Surrounding Black children with jumbled masses of cartoon characters, doodles, and explosions of color, Chicago-based artist Kayla Mahaffey (previously) imagines adolescent daydreams and an array of playtime inventions. She infuses her acrylic paintings with a longing for carefree summer days, mornings spent watching the foibles of favorite animated characters, and hours left open for adventure, capturing feelings of joy and curiosity. Vividly rendered and layered with squiggles and globs of color, the large-scale works find “value in the sugar-coated nostalgia,” which Mahaffey explains:
There have been numerous occasions where we omit the truths of our past to only be met with the disappointments of the future, a never-ending cycle that has influenced our current era for the best and the worst. More

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Mammoth Straw Creatures Populate Japanese Farmland in the Annual Wara Art Festival

   15 Sep 00:00:19  |  ThisIsColossal

If you visit Japan’s Niigata Prefecture during the region’s annual rice harvest, you’re likely to find enormous tarantulas, eagles, and dinosaur-like creatures stalking the bucolic landscape. The towering sculptures are part of the Wara Art Festival, a summertime event that displays massive animals and mythical creations fashioned from the crop’s leftover straw.
Traditionally, the byproduct is used as livestock feed, for compost that revitalizes the soil, and to craft household goods like zori sandals, although farmers increasingly have found themselves with a surplus as agricultural technology and culture changes. More

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   15 Sep 00:00:18  |  ThisIsColossal

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Jen Stark?s Colorful World Comes to Life at ?Cascade? in Brooklyn

   14 Sep 00:00:24  |  ThisIsColossal

An immersive experience by multimedia artist Jen Stark is coming to Williamsburg. From September 17 through October 24, visitors can experience Stark’s colorful dreamworld Cascade through interactive mind-bending projections, 3D-mapped environments, murals, and sculptures presented across 6,000 square feet of exhibition space at the William Vale Hotel in Brooklyn, New York. Cascade will also introduce a series of NFTs available for auction, as well as $STARK coin, a social token promoting community involvement in the artist’s pursuits. More

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A Spectacularly Colorful Shot of an Oak Leaf Tops Nikon?s 2021 Photomicrography Competition

   14 Sep 00:00:23  |  ThisIsColossal

Unless they were under a microscope, it would be difficult to see the shimmery barbs of a louse claw or cracks running through a single piece of table salt. The winning entries of the 47th annual Nikon’s Small World Photomicrography Competition unveil these otherwise imperceptible features, showing the unique textures, colors, and shapes in stunning detail. We’ve chosen some of our favorite images below?these include the crystal-like webbing of a slime mold captured by Allison Pollack (previously), the first-prize winning glimpse of an oak leaf by Jason Kirk, and the kaleidoscopic head of a tick revealed by doctors Tong Zhang and Paul Stoodley?and you can find more from this year’s competition on the contest’s site and Instagram. More

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Dried Floral Arrangements Sprout from Elaborate Tulle-Based Embroideries

   13 Sep 00:00:11  |  ThisIsColossal

Using simple white tulle as her base, Olga Prinku creates lush arrangements of flowers, seedpods, berries, and other organic materials teeming with color and texture. She fastens the preserved florals, which she often grows or forages and then dries herself, to the mesh webbing, encircling an embroidery hoop with elaborate patterns or depicting figurative renderings of birds and individual blooms. Many of the pieces replicate the motifs found in nature or those prevalent in eastern European folklore, which the North Yorkshire-based artist ties to her upbringing in the Republic of Moldova. More

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A Whimsical Ad Uses Conductive Thread to Light Up Miniature Scenes Made of Yarn and Fabric

   13 Sep 00:00:10  |  ThisIsColossal

Simple landscapes dotted with felt trees, miniature power lines, and spool-propelled ambulances become twinkling nightscapes and whimsically glowing scenes in “Connecting Thoughts.” The advertisement, which was created to promote the Japanese infrastructure firm Kandenko?s ?Everyone Lights up the Future” message, uses Smart-X conductive thread to send electric currents through figures stitched into gloves and around yarn-based architecture, illuminating each scenario with tiny bulbs. This short piece follows the company’s 2016 ad, which used a conductive marker to create a dazzling pop-up book. More

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