Flowers

Cologne-based artist and designer Hannes Hummel has long been interested in the intersection of digital tools and nature. Previously collaborating on an elaborate collection of artificial specimens, Hummel’s latest project pushes the boundaries of floral design to a bizarrely beautiful place.

Eighty unearthly botanical renderings comprise Hybrid Species, a vast herbarium of imagined organisms. Translucent petals lined with bright veins, pistils dripping with a sticky liquid, and leaves winding like tubular tendrils propel the hyperrealistic flowers into an otherworldly realm.

Much of Hummel’s work involves plugging photos and natural patterns like tessellations and fractals into digital programs. For this series, he trained an A.I. model with his own images and 3D models, exploring the personally generative potential of the tools without incorporating others’ copyrighted works. He writes:

Like nature, the process sometimes veers off in unexpected directions, feeling random at times, while at others, it follows a clear path, uncovering new possibilities. This intersection between human imagination and machine-driven innovation fascinates me most in each flower design. In this series, nature is portrayed not as it is, but as it could be—reimagined, reshaped, and rendered through algorithms.

A fraction of Hybrid Species is shown here, so head to Instagram for more of Hummel’s digital creations.

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Thousands of individual flowers and plants grown in Meggan Joy’s Seattle garden form the contours of her ethereal figures. The artist (previously) collages perfectly trimmed photographs of each specimen into silhouettes lush with color and texture.

In her most recent body of work titled Fever Dream, Joy draws on fear, loss, and the immense potential for pain. “Wide and Wild,” for example, depicts a woman cradling a Eurasian Eagle Owl near her heart. “She’s a piece for when you find your person (whether that be a lover, friend, kids, whatever), and once you have them, you know that if they disappear in any way, you also will be gone,” the artist shares in a statement.

Others relate to bad decisions yielding positive experiences and how etermal bonds require patience and understanding. Each work, Joy shares, “whisper(s) the components of the stories that tested us and, instead of condemning our faults, reveal that those moments left us the most exciting scars.

Fever Dream is on view through September 25 at J. Rinehart Gallery. Follow Joy’s work on Instagram.

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Early in the morning of July 23, 1967, police raided an after-hours, unlicensed bar known colloquially as a “blind pig”—a speakeasy—on the Near West Side of Detroit. Law enforcement expected only a few customers inside, but to their surprise, more than 80 people were in attendance for a party celebrating GIs returning from the Vietnam War. The police decided to arrest everyone, and by the time they were through, a sizable and angry crowd had gathered outside to witness the raid.

A doorman named William Walter Scott III, whose father ran the blind pig, later detailed in a memoir that by throwing a bottle at a police officer, he incited what came next: the most violent riot in the country since 1863. The clash emerged as the bloodiest of a series of more than 150 race riots that erupted in cities around the nation during the long, hot summer of 1967. Spurred by racial segregation, recent police reforms and policing inequity, an economic crisis, inadequate housing projects, a practice known as redlining—financial services discriminatorily withheld from neighborhoods with significant populations of racial and ethnic minorities—and many other factors, tensions finally erupted.

Yashua Klos’s family in Detroit was profoundly impacted by the strain and chaos of the riots. Raised in Chicago and now based in the Bronx, the artist (previously) is researching the history of riots for Black justice in the U.S., from Newark to Los Angeles. “In New York, during the uprisings around George Floyd’s murder, I saw a lot of media blaming riot violence on the same vulnerable populations being killed by law enforcement,” he tells Colossal. “I’m also thinking about how Black populations rebuild and carry on afterward—how the wildflowers keep sprawling after the smoke dies down.”

Wildflowers play a crucial role in his mixed-media pieces, which combine woodblock prints, paper, paint, colored pencil, and wood into multifaceted portraits. He incorporates blooms native to Michigan to illustrate the “defiant resilience” of his family. “In the work, I’m thinking about the ways my aunts make space for our family affairs,” he says. “The women in my family organize and cook for parties, funerals, and reunions, all while raising children and working jobs. The hands I depict are their hands—resisting work and taking a moment with the wildflowers for self-care.”

Klos is interested in broader questions around Black Americans’ relationship with self-care within the context of the country’s economy, interrogating the “assumption that the Black body is designed for labor,” he says. “I also see pressures on Black women to prioritize space-making for family over their own health.” He surrounds the figures’ faces with decorative and geometric details as if growing beyond limitations or constraints. Vines and flowers wind around hands and cheeks, tender yet insistent reminders of resourcefulness and determination. “Wildflowers are about a kind of ‘space-taking’ or sprawling,” Klos says. “They grow and bloom without permission.”

Klos currently has work in Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage at The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., which continues through September 22, and Double ID at The Wright in Detroit, which remains on view through October 20. The artist is also working toward his first solo exhibition with Vielmetter Los Angeles, slated for spring 2025. Find more on his website, and follow Instagram for updates.

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Over the centuries, humanity’s relationship with wilderness has becoming increasingly fraught, as we continue to diminish natural green spaces in favor of roads, buildings, and manicured lawns. For Vashon Island-based artist Ariana Heinzman, our connection—or disconnection—to nature plays a central role in her vibrant ceramics practice.

For her current solo exhibition, Habitat for a Fake Plant at J. Rinehart Gallery, Heinzman (previously) conceived of a collection of quirky stoneware houseplants that sit on stools, irregularly shaped large-scale paintings, and decapitated-looking cuttings installed on the wall. These pieces interrogate the absurdity of bringing nature into human-made environments, examining how we have trained plants to acclimate to interior life.

“In this world, plant-like sculptures are wrapped in patterns reminiscent of tablecloths and wallpaper,” the artist says in a statement for the show, emphasizing their domestic role. The specimens sprout leaves that are flattened to adhere better to flat surfaces, and the foliage assumes anthropomorphic poses, “lounging in this new environment where their purpose is decoration.”

If you’re in Seattle, you can stop by Habitat for a Fake Plant through August 28. Explore more on the artist’s website and Instagram.

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According to Greek mythology, Daphne was the descendant of river gods. Born with a surging hunger for freedom and autonomy, the nymph committed herself to living a life rooted in solitude as she poured herself into deep passions like nature and hunting. Although Daphne devoted a great deal of time to exploring her tranquil surroundings, she eventually found herself in the chaotic throes of unrequited love as Apollo desperately sought to seize her for himself. One day, during a relentless pursuit in which Daphne was being chased by the Greek god, her only escape was to call her father for help, who subsequently transformed her into a laurel tree.

Narratives similar to this, symbolizing the adversity of self-preservation against burdening pressures set forth by powerful men, play a critical role in Valerie Hammond’s current solo exhibition Dreamers Awake.

While Hammond’s newest works imbue familiar themes of nature, spirituality, and strife, they also evolve from the artist’s ongoing interest in surrealism’s ability to address patriarchal narratives. “I found creative potential in its exploration of the unconscious and the uncanny, and I admired its attempts to liberate social conventions from conformist structures,” Hammond explains in the exhibition text. “I was especially intrigued by women’s involvement in surrealism, and their unique images of sexuality, vulnerability, violence, and rage.”

A feminine figure with billowing texture emerges from an amalgamation of wasp nests, wood, and paper in “Daphne 2,” alluding to the mythological tale while emphasizing the inextricable parallels between feminine plight and the metamorphic characteristics of nature. “Laurel” quite literally depicts the cost of self-advocacy, portraying Daphne’s fate as sprawling tree branches ascend from a pair of feet. Hammond’s ink pieces further draw upon the dissolution of feminine bodies, as inked silhouettes fade into landscapes behind them.

Dreamers Awake is on view at Pamela Salisbury Gallery in Hudson, New York until August 25. Keep an eye on Hammond’s Instagram for more updates and work.

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Each week, Petah Coyne reads two or three books. Along with film and the natural world, literature has had a profound impact on the artist throughout her decades-long career, as she references Flannery O’Connor, Zora Neale Hurston, Zelda Fitzgerald, and numerous other women in her works. Coyne gravitates toward texts rooted in feminist principles, which she then puts into conversation and filters through large-scale sculptures and installations.

Dichotomies flourish in the artist’s practice as she suspends silk bouquets in specially formulated wax, dipping the vibrant blooms in a molten wash and often displaying them upside down. Many pieces capture the tension between preservation and loss and beauty and monstrosity, particularly as they relate to the complexity of women’s lives. The combination of myriad materials furthers this contrast, as the artist pairs luscious silks with paper towels, soft velvet with nuts and bolts, and shackles with woven tassels.

Installations like “Untitled #1103 (Daphne)” and the later “Untitled #1181 (Dante’s Daphne)” wind spindly branches, flowers, and artificial taxidermy around an undulating chicken wire armature. Sprayed with black paint, the dark, ominous works appear alive, as if crawling across the gallery to catch prey. The titles reference the Greek myth and the nymph who was turned into a laurel tree after attempting to escape Apollo’s unrequited love.

Similarly dynamic works include “Untitled #1379 (The Doctor’s Wife),” which features hand-sewn Venetian velvet in sumptuous mounds of navy and black. The work shares a name with a 1966 novel by Sawako Ariyoshi, which fictionalizes the real story of a Japanese surgeon pitted between his wife and mother. As two statutory figures rise from the roiling mass, the artist stitches together a tapestry of conflict, forcing the pair to face off while the third player in the dispute remains unseen.

Championing women has always been an integral part of Coyne’s practice and life. In addition to her sculptural works, the artist is a longtime collaborator with the anonymous feminist collective Guerilla Girls. She and photographer Kathy Grove are behind a series of documentary portraits of each original member, creating an art historical record of the activist group.

Coyne will open a large solo show titled How Much a Heart Can Hold at the Chazen Museum of Art in Madison this September, which will travel to the Neuberger Museum of Art in Purchase, New York, and Lowe Art Museum in Miami in the following years. Her works will also be included in several group exhibitions this fall, including at Grounds for Sculpture, Frost Art Museum, and Lehman College. Until then, explore Coyne’s vast oeuvre on her website and Instagram.

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From bronze, chrome, and silicone, Marc Quinn’s larger-than-life botanicals emerge with delicate precision. The exhibition Light into Life at Royal Botanic Gardens Kew in London continues the artist’s exploration of the boundaries between the natural and artificial, the living and non-living, sexuality, and the passage of time.

Quinn often uses a mirrored effect to literally reflect humanity in nature while blurring the lines between the work and its surroundings. In others, he emphasizes the heft, history, and scale possible with bronze. For example, “Held by Desire (The Dimensions of Freedom)” and “Burning Desire” tap into the metaphorical association of flowers to human biology and anatomy, their titles emphasizing emotional parallels, like the precise tension of a carefully tended bonsai or the supple petals of a red, sensual orchid with yearning.

Orchids, bonsai, and tropical flowers provide the starting point for Quinn’s remarkable sculptures that emphasize permanence and in a realm that relies on the opposite: changing seasons, weather patterns, and visiting pollinators. He confronts the ephemerality of blossoms and leaves by casting their likenesses at a monumental scale in metal, freezing blooms to preserve the zenith of their beauty, or immersing entire bouquets in silicone oil to indefinitely sustain their vibrancy.

Light into Life continues through September 29. Explore more of the artist’s work on his website.

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Yoshiyuki Katayama captures the ineffable qualities of nature and time in her ongoing series Umwelt (previously), which traces myriad relationships between insects and flowering plants.

The title takes its name from an ethological concept that uses the German word “umwelt,” usually translated to “self-centered world,” to describe how animals experience their surroundings. Through elegant timelapses of unfurling blossoms, Katayama composes portraits of hostas and gerberas inhabited by colorful six-and eight-legged creatures that, thanks to some great editing, move in real time.

Find more on the artist’s website and Instagram.

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For Valerie Lueth of Tugboat Printshop, the final piece is only one stage of the painstaking yet satisfying process of making woodblock prints. The works emerge from meticulous planning and carving of numerous blocks, which the Pittsburgh-based artist layers on top of one another to achieve a variety of colors, patterns, and striking contrasts.

One recent print “Reflecting Narcissus,” depicts five daffodils reflected in a pool of water. The composition references the Greek mythological character, Narcissus, whose beauty and youth were admired by everyone who looked upon him, even though he didn’t love anyone. That is, until he saw his own reflection in a pool and fell deeply for his image, pining away until he died and was transformed into a flower named for him.

Lueth (previously) is known for creating detailed prints that call on the beauty of nature and folklore, and she revels in the process behind each work, which you can explore more in-depth on her website. She was recently featured in issue 25 of the printmaking magazine Pressing Matters and has two prints currently available for pre-order, including “Ladder Tree,” shown below.

Follow Instagram for additional updates.

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“Flowers are connecting, grounding, uplifting, healing, and worth treasuring,” says Essex-based artist Jessica Saunders, whose delicate stained glass sculptures highlight an array of familiar and beloved blooms. From daffodils and poppies to cornflowers and hydrangeas, her pieces celebrate the cyclical nature of the seasons and the incredible range of specimens in both our backyards and the wild.

For Saunders, inspiration comes from her own garden and walks outside with her dog Bramble, observing the gradual changes in blossoms and foliage throughout the year. She also builds upon stories people share with her about specific flowers that evoke memories of others or places they’ve visited, which can be captured in glass as an everlasting reminder.

Saunders began working with stained glass in 2020 when her partner gifted her a beginners’ guide to the practice. “I immediately fell head over heels in love with the process,” the artist tells Colossal. “It felt natural to use my hands this way, and understanding all the different techniques came easily.” She enjoyed the challenges and possibilities of the medium, intrigued by its colors, textures, and transparency, in addition to its ability to be endlessly recycled.

While preserving personal memories or observations, Saunders is also helping to keep a heritage craft alive. Stained glass “takes time and care; it can’t be rushed,” she says. “Each piece has positive intentions soldered, ground, and burnished into them.”

Saunders is currently working on her Summer Collection, scheduled for release around the solstice in June, which will include honeysuckle, rudbeckia, sweet peas, hollyhocks, strawberries, and more. Find more on the artist’s website, and follow updates on Instagram.

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