Though Alex Kuno’s current work is still brimming with fairytale imagery and carries both a grim and satirical mythology, these new mixed-media pieces offer a decidedly frenzied, more toiled spin. These works take the familiar children and beasts and expose their innards, a blend of seemingly floral and unsettling organic matter. With Kuno’s playful vibrancy, each exposed being is more absorbing than repelling. Kuno was last featured on HiFructose.com here.
Tamara Kostianovsky, an Israel-born, Argentina-raised artist, uses pieces of clothing—including her own—to construct meat carcasses that recreated muscle, bone, and cartilage. Her “Actus Reus” series places these gruesome, yet engrossing creations on meat hooks. While the soft nature of the material may not recall our insides, Kostianovsky’s reproductions still unsettle in their faithfulness to butchered bodies. Her “Still Lives” series takes a similar approach, yet maintains part of the emulated exterior of animal bodies (along with grander presentation).
Using discarded newspapers and books, sculptor Nick Georgiou creates strange portraits of characters and creatures that inject life into material “becoming artifacts of the 21st century,” he says. The artist, a New York native who now lives in Tucson, Ariz., takes influence from the South West and the broader societal trend of moving toward digital means of consumption.
Edwin Ushiro, a Hawaii native currently based in California, constructs lively, vibrant scenes that often depict youths in adventure (and misadventure), offering escape during the winter months for those yearning for summer sights of yesterday. The artist, who works in the film industry as a storyboard artist, production designer, visual consultant, and concept designer, carries a cinematic, dreamlike vibe through many of these scenes. With one parent from Maui and the other a native of Japan, the artist has said they he sees both cultures as an influence. Ushiro was last featured on HiFructose.com here.
Seattle-based artist Moxie Lieberman spent a year “needle felting” to create “Control,” a system of gadgets comprised entirely of wool. The process comes from transforming wool fiber into felt with the use of barbed needles. The artist creates “unusually dense, solid, self-supporting” structures with this method, which takes several, several hours.
Vasco Mourao, who goes by the moniker Mister Mourao, describes himself as “an architect turned into an artist with a tendency for obsessive drawing.” In his new series, “Ouroborus,” he combines mediums for renderings of buildings that flow in continuous loops. These structures neither begin nor end, offering countless points of entry.