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Foregrounding vibrant patterns, swathed in bright fabrics, and illuminated by the sun, the figures in Cameroonian artist Marc Padeu’s paintings are imbued with beguiling gravitas. His large-scale works stem from a fascination with the power of narrative, connecting the Western art historical canon—especially Renaissance titans like Caravaggio—with contemporary experiences of life in Cameroon.

Padeu was trained by the church as a fresco painter. He draws on dramatic biblical stories to juxtapose momentous religious and spiritual accounts with quotidian moments that emphasize Black joy, leisure, family, and fraternity.

Through the immediacy of acrylic, Padeu renders figures in everyday yet memorable scenes, whether gathered outdoors to relax, witnessing a baptism, or solemnly coexisting amid vivid surroundings.

Many of Padeu’s paintings take inspiration from Renaissance compositions, like “La réunion syndicale,” which bears hints of da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” (1495-1498) or Caravaggio’s “The Supper at Emmaus” (1601). Portrayed nearly life-size, the artist’s tableaux immerse us in rites of passage and moments of togetherness.

Find more on the artist’s Instagram.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Drawing on Religious Renaissance Art, Marc Padeu’s Paintings Monumentalize the Quotidian appeared first on Colossal.

From geometric, white panels riveted together into an undulating sphere, Marc Fornes / THEVERYMANY’s newest public installation invites visitors to immerse themselves in a luminous experience on Google’s Charleston East Campus in California.

Designed as a physical embodiment of innovation and creativity, “The Orb” invites us into a 10-meter-tall, 26-meter-wide labyrinthine form made of ultra-thin aluminum. “Edged yet edgeless, surfaces curve, branch, split, rejoin, and split again,” the studio (previously) says. “This extreme curvature—achieved through cutting-edge computational design—enables the surfaces to be entirely self-supporting despite being just three millimeters thick.”

“The Orb” comprises 6,441 individual components connected with more than 217,000 rivets. During the day, a pattern of holes speckles sunlight across the pavilion and onto the ground. At night, the structure is illuminated, casting deep shadows that contrast the bright details.

Fornes’ mission, hybridizing elements of art and architecture, is to spark “the joy wandering, the joy of marveling.”

Find more on THEVERYMANY website.

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In his ongoing “quest to articulate the ineffable,” Arizona-based artist Daniel Martin Diaz (previously) creates large-scale works that merge metaphysical, scientific, and technological phenomena into vibrant geometric compositions.

Diaz’s current solo exhibition, UNIVERSAL CODES at the Everhart Museum of Natural History, Science, and Art, presents recent work drawing on a wide range of influences, from Mexican religious iconography and arcane religious sigils to Early Netherlandish painters and Gothic decorative motifs.

Diaz’s work often investigates concepts of death and religion “as he seeks to pose questions but not answer them,” says an exhibition statement. Juxtaposing esoteric symbols and messages with scientific diagrams and spiritual iconography, the artist explores the surreality of cosmic forces.

UNIVERSAL CODES continues through April 27 in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Find more on Diaz’s Instagram, and peruse a range of prints, apparel, and home accessories in his shop.

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Nature has always been a subject of fascination for Clara Lacy, who roamed the fields and streams around her home in Hampshire when she was young, spurring an interest in studying biology. Art also emerged as a way for her to channel her interest in animals and plants, tapping into the long-held tradition of artists documenting flora and fauna for science.

As she moved around to different parts of the world, with stints in Hong Kong and Sydney before returning to the U.K., Lacy absorbed each place’s variations in botanical life, weather, and light, inspiring a body of work that reflects on climate change, species loss, and “the need to find balance between humans and nature,” she says.

The World Has Dropped Its Petals is a series of elaborately detailed graphite drawings illuminating the world of flowers. In heavily contrasted grayscale, the blooms are devoid of the bright colors we typically associate with their petals and foliage, instead highlighted by an array of textures and naturally occurring patterns.

“I’ve always been drawn to monotone work for its subtle tonal variations, offering a contrast to the bombardment of colour and light around us, all vying for our attention,” Lacy tells Colossal. She was drawn to graphite because its limited palette helps the subject to stand out through contrasts like delicate lines or deep blacks. She’s also interested in how graphite is often overlooked in fine art, classified typically as a sketching material rather than a standalone medium.

Lacy titles her pieces after characters in Greek myth like Thanatos, the personification of death, and twin brothers Nyx (Night) and Hypnos (Sleep). She uses her own photos for reference, collaging and layering components in Photoshop until she finds an overall composition that resonates. The World Has Dropped Its Petals draws inspiration from stills lifes of the Dutch Golden Age, too, characterized by dark backgrounds from which flowers or fruit appear to pop in brilliance.

The series is on view through April 13 at James Gorst Architects in London. Lacy has also started working on a new project exploring time and aging, which emphasizes zoomed-in views of flower fragments. Find more on the artist’s website and Instagram.

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In Harold and the Purple Crayon, the young protagonist composes a fantasy reality using the deceptively simple power of line. Harold manifests numerous adventures with a single writing instrument, drawing himself into ever more exciting capers. For artist Adam Ledford, Crockett Johnson’s iconic 1955 children’s book provides one reference point for his approach to large-scale installations.

Ledford dots life-size line drawings of domestic spaces with “half pots,” or reliefs of ceramic vessels, which reflect how everyday objects represent individuals’ values, experiences, and projection of identity. Canisters of coffee or cleaning solutions detail vintage packaging design, while other items like cooking utensils or decorative objects highlight personal taste and daily routines.

“I am the person visiting your house, who is eyeing up all the tchotchkes, asking about your tea kettle, and picking up and looking at the bottom of your tableware,” Ledford tells Colossal. He credits his love for pottery for providing the lens through which he also learned America’s historical timeline, describing how “the objects help set a mental stage for the abstract process of thinking about the past.”

In Ledford’s expansive installations, which range from multiple walls to single architectural features, black-and-white outlines represent kitchen cabinets, countertops, or fireplaces—locations where containers and vessels are collected, stored, or displayed. “Theater,” for example, is a replica of his own kitchen. The artist says, “The drawn environments are a stage setting for the objects to play and star.”

Ledford’s work is currently on view in Dinner Table, on view through May 29 at The Delaware Contemporary in Wilmington. Find more on the artist’s website and Instagram. You might also enjoy the hand-drawn installations of Anastasia Parmson and Shantell Martin.

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“To have something be uncanny, you must first introduce the familiar,” says Lizzie Gill. Likening her compositions to a dining table’s place settings, the artist paints elaborate still lifes that explore the matriarchal lineages and how objects passed down shift in meaning over time.

The vivid works feature flat backdrops met by boldly striped or floral linens and a menagerie of animals seized by fresh blooms. A marble and dust emulsion, which Gill layers on the acrylic-painted panel with a baker’s piping tool, adds a life-like texture to the petals. She also utilizes an image-transfer process to translate various pieces from her mother’s porcelain collection, further enmeshing her works in domestic traditions.

The still life, Gill says, is her preferred platform for exploring the tenets of Surrealism and what it means to be a steward. In “Lunar Still Life (Avec L’hippopotame),” for example, long stems coil around an animated porcelain seal and hippo rendered in delicate blue and white. “Still Life With Four Cerulean Vessels” is similarly lively as a miniature fox with a vine wrapped around its torso wanders across the tablescape.

Decorating the vases are unlikely scenes depicting volcanic eruptions, rocket launches, and even a menacing twister ripping across the terrain. Embellishing antique forms with contemporary imagery, the works juxtapose the calm propriety associated with domestic spaces and world-changing, explosive actions generated by both humans and nature.

Based in Sharon, Connecticut, Gill is currently researching historic textiles for upcoming works, and those shown here are on view in her solo exhibition Paraphernalia through April 26 at Hesse Flatow. Follow the latest on Instagram.

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People have lived in the area around modern-day Glacier Bay National Park, along Alaska’s rugged southern coastline, for at least around 3,000 years. Nearby, in Groundhog Bay, evidence of human habitation extends back a mindboggling 9,000-or-more years.

In the mid-18th century, advancing glaciers forced ancestral Huna Tlingit people to abandon their homes. While they could visit certain areas occasionally to hunt and fish, the evolving conditions and ice prevented them from living there. And when the area was designated a national monument in 1925, it seemed possible the displacement would be permanent.

“I never, ever thought that I would ever see the day, in my lifetime, that Tlingits could return to the Homeland,” says local resident Jeff Skaflestad in the opening of the National Park Service’s short film, “Sanctuary for the Future.” But in 2016, thanks to many years’ work and a collaboration between the National Park Service and the Hoonah Indian Association—the tribal government of the Huna Tlingit clans—Xunaa Shuká Hít marked a momentous homecoming.

Both a space for tribal ceremonies and a nexus of living history, the house is a sacred place for the Indigenous community that also provides visitors the opportunity to learn about Huna Tlingit culture, history, and oral traditions.

Xunaa Shuká Hít, which roughly translates to “Huna Ancestors’ House,” was brought to life by three Tlingit craftsmen: Gordon Greenwald, Owen James, and Herb Sheakley, Sr., who spent countless hours carving their ancestors’ stories into meticulously selected trees and wooden panels.

In a large carving shed in nearby Hoonah, Alaska, the artisans, along with occasional help from friends and neighbors, worked on totem poles, boats, oars, and architectural details. “Having Elders come in and talk with us, just to share with us, that was a highlight of my days,” James says. Sheakley adds that as they began carving, it was an obvious decision to make their own tools, too, as a way of connecting to time-honored traditions.

From his mountainside studio in Nova Friburgo, Brazil, Guy Laramée (previously) creates otherworldly sculptures that mirror nearby peaks like Pico da Caledônia. Using a unique method of blasting antique books with high-pressure water and stripping them of their covers, he manipulates the bound text blocks into craggy cliff faces and rocky promontories.

When viewed from certain angles, each sculpture’s identity as volumes of text nearly vanishes as we perceive mountains in miniature. As one moves around the pieces, the rigid form of stitched binding appears or printed pages ruffle and hint and the contents.

Laramée’s sculptures tread the line between object and landscape, juxtaposing themes of knowledge, history, and archives with geology, time, and the environment. The artist often employs dictionaries and encyclopedias, which constantly evolve and require updates, exploring the tension between physical representations of information and learning and our relationship with the natural world.

The works shown here are part of Laramée’s online exhibition presented by JHB Gallery, Livros, which continues through May 4. Find more on the artist’s website.

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Through intimate, mixed-media collages, Stan Squirewell excavates the stories of those who might otherwise be lost in anonymity. The artist gathers images from the Smithsonian’s archives and from friends and family that he then reinterprets with vibrant prints and patterns. Layering unknown pasts with present-day additions, Squirewell explores how everyday traditions and rituals remain through generations.

His new body of work, Robitussin, Hotcombs & Grease, invokes ubiquitous items like the over-the-counter decongestant and hair care. “Growing up, I was shaped by elders around me, and everyday objects like Robitussin, hotcombs, and grease became vessels for the rituals that anchored me to my heritage,” the artist says. “These items transcend their mundane uses: they embody traditions passed down through generations, grounding me in a collective identity.”

Squirewell cuts and collages images and fabrics from his collection before photographing the composition, which then undergoes a digital editing process. An elaborate frame complements each piece with charred shou sugi ban edges—a Japanese burning technique—and hand-carved details. The sides bear various inscriptions connecting past and present, including lines from Langston Hughes’ poems and glyphs from ancestral African languages that have fallen out of use.

Because the identities and histories of many of the subjects are unknown, Squirewell’s work adds a new relevance to their images. How have daily, domestic practices and the legacies of previous generations informed the present? And how do these traditions create a broader collective experience? Rooted in these questions, the dignified works become reliquaries that honor what’s been passed down and how that continues to inform life today.

Robitussin, Hotcombs & Grease is on view through May 24 at Claire Oliver Gallery in Harlem. Find more from Squirewell on Instagram.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article In Vivid Reliquaries, Stan Squirewell Layers Anonymous Portraits and Patterned Textiles appeared first on Colossal.