Category: Design

“Clay is an incredible medium to hold narrative,” says Xanthe Summers, who turns to the medium as a way to explore themes around domesticity, craft, and so-called “women’s work” like cleaning, mending, working with textiles, and caregiving. When it comes to clay, she says, “I think mostly I am invigorated by its ability to hold—to…

What does it mean to sin? In mystical paintings in oil, Isabella Mellado diverges from the Catholic guilt she knows all too well to instead bask in desire and the beauty of transgressions. The Chicago-based, Puerto Rico-born artist is known for her magical realist works that draw on tarot and the occult to explore queer…

After 13 years on the road, Zac Henderson (previously) traded in the van he and his wife lived in full-time to return to the South and be nearer to family. “Despite the many recognizable faces and places, my relationship to them had changed,” he says. “As is everyone who leaves home and then returns, I…

Influenced by the ornate decor of Islamic mosaics and architecture, Anila Quayyum Agha creates large-scale installations that utilize the power of light and shadow to transform a room. Laser-cut steel structures, like her seminal work “Intersections,” take a simple cube as a starting point. The artist incises elaborate patterns from the surface, then situates a…

Joy and the possibilities of creative communion ground the practice of Vipoo Srivilasa (previously). The artist, who lives and works between Australia and Thailand, is known for his ceramic sculptures that take an ebullient approach to life. Standing between one and two feet tall, Srivilasa’s figures are clad in floral baubles, mandala-like motifs, and gold…

From Manhattan to San Diego to Cleveland, neighborhoods known for their Italian-American populations have endearingly been called Little Italy, where facets of the Mediterranean nation’s culture and cuisine are preserved and celebrated. For artists Lorraine Loots and Dina Brodsky, who both create work on a very small scale, a trip to Italy and a collaborative…

Although we’re familiar with numerous birds displaying bright blue hues, from the aptly named blue jays to indigo buntings to various species of heron, this color in avians’ feathers is actually a trick of physics. While hues like red and yellow are produced from pigments, blue results from the way light interacts with molecules inherent…

With acrobatic finesse, the figures in Artez’s large-scale murals interpret the boundaries of the walls themselves through contemporary dance and moments of repose. Currently working on an ongoing series titled Simple Acrobatics, the artist explains that he aims to “break away from the conventional approach of depicting the human figure on a mural and offer…

Youthful and mysterious figures emerge from glass and ceramic in the uncanny sculptures of Christina Bothwell (previously). Animals and children form the artist’s primary focus, often embellished with painted florals, nestled in shells, or encapsulated within bird cages. Her husband and collaborator, Robert Bender, often adds wood elements like deer antlers or spider-esque legs. Tender…

Wander into Kirsty Elson’s Cornwall studio, and you’ll likely greet a menagerie of creatures alongside scraps of driftwood and rusted bits of metal. Scouring local beaches and embankments, the artist (previously) has an impeccable ability to envision a piglet’s ear or a dog’s snout from a weathered hunk of timber. Once in her studio, quirky…