For millennia, humans have navigated seas, rivers, and oceans as avenues for trade, exploration, conquest, and colonization. During the Age of Discovery—an era interwoven with what’s known as the Age of Sail—European explorers and traders embarked on journeys around the world to map previously uncharted continents, trade commodities, and establish new socio-political outposts. Imperial forces competed with one another to control as much as they could, all in the name of wealth and power, and individual landowners and traders profited immensely. But sustaining a presence in far-flung places would never have been remotely possible, nevertheless successful, without slavery.

Well into the 19th century, humans were transported through a vast slave network, with millions crammed aboard ships bound for various parts of Europe or North America. For London-based artist LR Vandy, the layered and often fraught legacies of labor, shipping, and trade undergird a distinctive sculptural practice.

Vandy’s studio is based at Chatham Historic Dockyard in Kent, where the history of wooden ships is alive and well. She uses materials such as Manila rope—a thick nautical rope made from the abaca plant, which is native to The Philippines—bobbers, navigation equipment, ship’s helms, hull-shaped wooden forms, and more, to explore the tangles of maritime history.

Vandy’s exhibition titled Rise, in The Weston Gallery at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, marks the artist’s first solo museum show. Many of the works seen here are included in the show, while others represent earlier pieces. In her most recent work, the rope is a central focus as she explores its “entanglement in human
history, its role in the development of civilisations, and its inextricable links to colonial enslavement of people,” says an exhibition statement. Everyday objects are repurposed and manipulated in an ongoing inquiry into process and materials, especially “drawing attention to the social, economic and political systems embedded within everyday objects.”

Anchoring the space at Yorkshire Sculpture Park is a giant, rope-covered form evocative of a maypole, nodding to historic European folk traditions that celebrate community, ritual, and regeneration. Other objects appear to spin or sway, as if skirts are swishing or invisible players move through a series of games. “My practice centres the hidden human costs of colonialism, transportation systems and commodities, and the knotted histories of trade and power they contain,” Vandy says in a statement. “The title, Rise, references ideas of resilience, protest, liberation, and collective joy explored through rituals and dance.”

Rise continues through September 13 in Wakefield. Learn more and plan your visit on the park’s website, and follow Vandy on Instagram for updates.

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In the mid-20th century, before preservation efforts revived Miami’s Art Deco South Beach neighborhood with bright colors and lavish hotels, the area was a whitewashed holiday haven for retirees. And in a third-floor room of the Colony Hotel, which looked out onto the building’s marquee and the street below, a unique artistic endeavor unfolded.

Ukrainian artist Jonko “George” Voronovsky (1903-1982) transformed his humble, long-term residence into a vibrant environment of paintings and objects that he described as “memoryscapes.” Having endured incredible hardship amid the political maneuvers of the U.S.S.R. and the Nazis during the 1930s and 1940s, he chose to work in a bright, optimistic style that summoned idyllic remembrances from his youth. A short film by Dia Kontaxis, “George V.,” spotlights his legacy.

By all accounts, Voronovsky experienced a loving, typically middle class upbringing in Ukraine in the early 20th century. He spent his youth exploring his village and local forests, studying music, and dabbling in visual art. By the time he was a teenager, the Russian Revolution of 1917 marked the beginning of a protracted period of upheaval in Ukraine. His father died during this time, and the country entered the control of the Soviet Union.

By the early 1930s, Voronovsky had moved to Kyiv. He married in 1933 and became a father to two children. He worked as a mapmaker, and he witnessed the systematic destruction of Kyiv’s historically baroque architecture, which the Soviets replaced with the propagandistic Stalinist style.

In 1941, life would again change drastically. Hitler invaded Ukraine and took control of Kyiv. Three years later, Voronovsky and his family were forced—like many thousands of Ukrainians—to resettle in a camp. They were marched hundreds of miles to Prague, where he then was separated from his family when he was furthered on to a labor camp in Germany. Although he later sent them a portion of his wages to support them, he never saw his wife or children again.

Throughout the 1940s, Voronovsky drifted, traveling with a group called the Musical Wanderers that played in Displaced Persons camps around Ukraine. In 1951, as part of a program that eased immigration quotas in the U.S. to welcome European refugees, Voronovsky landed in New York, then moved to Philadelphia, where the Ukrainian immigrant community was well established. For a while, he found work with the railroad, continued to play music, and traveled. During the 1960s, he created some of his earliest work, a series of nude sculptures.

Eventually, due to his health and a desire to retire somewhere warm, Voronovsky took a room at the Colony Hotel in Miami Beach. Piece by piece, he filled his modest space with colorful paintings and sculptures made from wood, styrofoam, aluminum, and other found materials. These elaborate, often joyful compositions drew from his memories of Ukraine. They highlighted animals, dances, architecture, and bucolic, sunny landscapes. Completely concealed from public display, it was only a matter of chance that his work was seen from the street by a young artist named Gary Monroe, who knocked on the door and befriended the artist.

The amount of work Voronovsky fit into his space was staggering. “This little room was probably nine by 12 feet—5,000 objects,” Monroe says. Star-like forms made from drink cans covered his cabinets and were arranged around paintings. He’d use the backs of pizza boxes and magazine spreads to make his work, drawing from the post-consumer landscape of Miami Beach.

It’s thanks to Monroe that Voronovsky’s work was introduced to a wider audience, first shown in 1986 at a Miami bookstore called Books & Books. It wasn’t until 2023 that the High Museum of Art in Atlanta organized the first major solo exhibition of the obscure artist’s work, recognizing his contribution to the canon of self-taught art in the U.S.

Kontaxis’ film spotlights the High Museum’s exhibition along with interviews and archival footage. See more of her work on Vimeo.

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Amid groves of trees, meadows, and aging infrastructure, Cinga Samson’s dreamlike tableaux are bathed in eerie light, as if spotlit or illuminated by the moon. The South African artist is known for his use of deep, dark pigments such as carbon black and Prussian blue, complemented by the occasional teal or purple and pops of bright white in t-shirts or sneakers. His figures, engaged in enigmatic activities, look on with spectral, all-white eyes. Green and brown foliage camouflages individuals who gather in fields, sort through mysterious items, and appear to converge with other beings like large birds.

The work seen here is currently on view in the artist’s solo exhibition at White Cube called Ukuphuthelwa. In the artist’s native language, isiXhosa, the title means “unable to sleep.” “Unlike the English word ‘insomnia,’ the isiXhosa term carries no negative connotation, and accordingly, for Samson, sleeplessness is not a condition to be cured but a state of spiritual alertness, a sensitivity that deepens in the dark,” the gallery says.

The nature of consciousness and even the realm of dreams is an apt entry point to Samson’s latest work, which examines how painting can be what he describes as “true and honest.” What is real? What do we imagine? Throughout art history, animals have long symbolized certain qualities or beliefs, such as dogs as allegories of fidelity and birds as messengers between the earthly and the divine. In the artist’s large-scale compositions, there is a sense of “readability” akin to the narrative-driven Western art genre of history paintings, where the presence of these beings hints at meaning. Yet as we spend time with Samson’s works, curiosity and wonder seem to always overtake glimpses of recognition.

Even though the artist’s scenes may seem at first indecipherable, there is a foundational sense of reverence and ceremony in how his figures commune in seemingly out-of-the-way places for undisclosed, perhaps ritualistic purposes. Samson invites us to encounter the unknown, weaving a tension between what is knowable and what is unspecified or concealed. Through this, he explores the limits of representation in art and aims for what the gallery describes as “the authority of the unnameable and the territory of the sublime,” where sacredness is present in holy spaces and everyday experiences alike.

Ukuphuthelwa continues through April 18 in New York City. See more on the artist’s Instagram.

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Gen Z has made headlines recently for turning to analog media and the slower pace of life synonymous with a pre-internet world. Alongside DVDs and print magazines, snail mail has also been on the rise as more people flock to spaces untouched by an algorithm or AI.

Even before the endless scroll subsumed much of our collective psyche, though, Gabriella Marcella was already combating digital fatigue through the design studio Risotto. Marcella founded Risotto in 2012, just after graduating from university, where she fell in love with risograph printing. She purchased her first machine secondhand and set up shop in her bedroom before moving to the Glue Factory, a former warehouse that still houses the studio along with other creatives.

By 2017, Marcella realized she wanted to share others’ work, too, and launched the Riso Club, which mails four postcards by four different artists to subscribers each month. “As a print fanatic, I’m guilty of having a lot of prints that just sit in a cupboard, so I think having them as a useful object is really important,” the designer told It’s Nice That.

The project grew from there, and this month, Risotto is celebrating its 100th mailing with a large-scale retrospective that presents all 400 artworks together for the first time. On view from April 11 to 19 at the Glue Factory, the exhibition celebrates the sheer breadth of styles, aesthetics, and messages that have been translated into a risograph print. Whether the artist lives in Bogota, Damascus, Philadelphia, or Melbourne, their work is shipped to patrons around the world, allowing them to reach new audiences wherever they are. Marcella adds:

Having something like a subscription that allows you to consume creative media on a completely different cycle, as slow as snail mail is, is really refreshing. I also think having that physical object in front of you that you can interact with means you engage with the work more, you might read the caption at the back, find out who the artist is, and so on.

For those just joining the club or unable to see the exhibition in person, Risotto released a searchable digital atlas of all 400 works. Find more on the studio’s website and follow along on Instagram.

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At Copenhagen Contemporary, Kengo Kuma and his team have honed in on the Japanese concept of komorebi, which reflects the unique interplay of light and shadow that occurs when the sun filters through the trees. The monumental, site-specific installation “Earth / Tree” harnesses this fleeting condition through a suspended canopy of wooden slats.

Curved with a central opening, the diaphonous structure floats above a brick platform and a pile of rubble. These two organic materials bridge Nordic and Japanese cultures, which both value craftsmanship and continuity with the landscape.

Kuma—who was recently awarded the bid to design the new National Gallery in London—often focuses on “soft architecture,” a mode of working entwined with the environment and people who engage with the space. “Earth / Tree” translates this concept into the Danish museum, where it’s on view through February 21, 2027.

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Galicia, Spain-based artist Abi Castillo continues to create iterative self-portraits through her evolving ensemble of ceramic personas. Her delicate yet emotive figures are an invitation to consider the inner self, transformation, and the beauty of the natural world.

Femininity, nature, and symbolism play a central role within Castillo’s sculptures, contrasting with the notion of concealment. “This ambivalence between mysticism and drama, between monstrosity and beauty, is all very present,” she explains in an artist statement.

Though each ceramic character is distinct, her body of work carries overarching formal motifs including colorful hairstyles and wide eyes with light blue irises. Organic elements—such as flowers, insects, coral, and marine foliage—wrap themselves around Castillo’s figures, evoking a sense of protection through delicate armor.

Last time we checked in with Castillo, she mentioned plans to move into a larger studio, where she works now. The artist shares that this opportunity has given her larger creative freedom, and she is looking forward to an exciting year including a group exhibition with Beautiful Bizarre Magazine opening next week at Outré Gallery in Melbourne. For updates and studio views, find Castillo on Instagram.

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In the little town of Kosciusko, Mississippi, a self-described “unusual artist” named L.V. Hull transformed her home and garden of three-and-a-half decades into an elaborate, continuous artwork. Through found objects and trinkets, paint, and glue she purchased at the local Walmart, the artist created an immersive art environment—a riot of color, patterns, and textures in which creativity merged with daily living.

Many of Hull’s works are currently on view in the show Love Is a Sensation at the Mississippi Museum of Art, which celebrates the self-taught artist’s eclectic approach to materials and space. From vibrantly painted everyday objects to idiosyncratic assemblages, Hull’s creativity and penchant for collecting knew no bounds.

“Hull merged art-making and the Southern art of ‘visiting’ to craft a creative practice that allowed her to commune with her inner spirit, her Creator, her community, and visitors from around the state, region, and world,” says a statement.

As a Black woman from a small Southern community, working within a genre often referred to as folk art, the artist worked outside of the mainstream art world. And like many minorities—especially in rural places—her practice is among those that have been marginalized within the canon, “resulting in an incomplete account of American creativity and art history,” the museum says. Love Is a Sensation spotlights Hull’s contributions to not only the creative legacy of the South but the tradition of artist-built environments.

Love Is a Sensation continues through June 14 in Jackson, and it also marks the advent of the new L.V. Hull Legacy Center, which is slated to open to the public this summer. You might also enjoy Tyree Guyton’s Heidelberg Project in Detroit, plus Jo Farb Hernández’s forthcoming book, Architectural Fantasies, which is slated for release on April 14.

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When Moffat Takadiwa sees a pile of rubbish—old technology parts, personal care items, clothing—he doesn’t just see a bunch of junk. The Harare, Zimbabwe-based artist has spent the better part of two decades collecting thousands upon thousands of pieces of plastic and metals foraged from landfills near the city’s Mbare neighborhood, where heaps of electronic equipment waste, also known as e-waste, ends up in illicit dump sites. In his studio, vast collections of colorful objects are meticulously sorted into collections.

Takadiwa is known for his elaborate sculptures made from what he describes as “everyday consumer residue”—discarded computer keyboard keys, toothbrush heads, plastic combs, buttons, and more. The colors, textures, and patina of wear and age produce patterns that it’s tempting to describe as “organic,” even though the materials are the opposite.

The artist’s current solo exhibition, The Crown! at Semiose, highlights the tension not only between visual harmony, consumer culture, and waste but also those of what curator Fernanda Brenner describes in the exhibition essay as “the tensions of Africa’s post-colonial afterlife.” Takadiwa describes it as the “colonial hangover.” For instance, afro combs appear throughout the show, “rooted in African traditions and the colonial self-fashioning they forced,” Brenner says. “Once tools for grooming and ritual, these combs now bear the weight of resistance and pride in Black political life.”

Takadiwa’s compositions drape, tapestry-like, with repetitive patterns and textures that alternate between softness and brittleness. From the distance, the details of unique components blur into a fabric-like substrate, but upon closer inspection, nail polish brushes, caps, and keyboard keys in various states of aged yellowing emerge as individual tributes to overconsumption and excess. “The result is beautiful, which is where the trouble begins,” Brenner writes. She continues:

If beauty could settle old scores, the art world would have solved more than it has…Rearranging the materials does not erase their origins. If you have ever pressed ‘delete’ and believed the problem was gone, his work offers a quiet correction. Nothing disappears; it only travels, usually to places like Mbare, where Takadiwa opened his artist-run space in what used to be a colonial beer hall.

The Crown! continues through May 16 in Paris. See more on the artist’s Instagram.

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Chiseled from wood, Aleph Geddis’ spindly, playful, vaguely alien wooden sculptures evoke an enigmatic tension between identity and glyph. His organic, hand-worked objects teeter between abstraction and figuration like retrofuturistic icons. The artist lives between Japan, Bali, and Orcas Island in Washington. “This split has been incredibly generative, allowing me to carry my practice with me and respond to very different environments and energies,” he tells Colossal.

Scale is a constant source of fascination. Geddis has recently been working on a series he calls Littles, which are “inspired by the way children disappear into dreamy, imaginative worlds while playing with toys,” he says. “They feel personal and secretive, almost like talismans.”

On the larger side, Geddis is lately considering how pieces may transform into site-specific responses to environments. He’s also currently working on a large-scale project for the Burning Man festival amid Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, which people will be able to walk through. “I love the idea of these forms existing in the clean, open environment of the playa, where they can be experienced at a completely different scale and in relation to the vast desert landscape.”

Some of Geddis’ works are currently on view at Crow Valley Gallery on Orcas Island alongside the work of his aunt, Kate Geddis. See more on the artist’s Instagram.

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From April 9 to 12, EXPO CHICAGO returns to Navy Pier, hosting hundreds of galleries, site-specific projects, talks, and multi-disciplinary programming both downtown and across the city. This week is one of the most exciting times for the Chicago-area art scene, and we’re excited to share our annual preview of what we’re most looking forward to!

1. Aliza Nisenbaum at Anton Kern and Regen Projects

Presented by Anton Kern and Regen Projects, Aliza Nisenbaum’s vibrant portraiture portrays her subjects in bold chromatics. Nisenbaum’s smaller-scale works presented at the fair echo one of her larger projects: a celebratory mural titled “Reading Circles/ Weaving Dreams/ Seeding Futures” created for the Obama Presidential Center.

2. Tawny Chatmon at Galerie Myrtis

We’re always excited for the opportunity to see Tawny Chatmon’s portraits up close. Galerie Myrtis will be presenting some of the artist’s newer works, which continue her interest in melding craft techniques with photography. Rather than gold leaf, though, Chatmon embroiders various motifs onto her portraits.

3. Maya Fuji at Charlie James

Referencing a genre of manga popular in the mid-2000s, Maya Fuji’s Slice of Life peers into the everyday activities of her young characters. Lounging, petting a napping cat, and getting ready for the evening take center stage in these vibrant yet calm paintings.

4. LaKela Brown at 56 Henry

LaKela Brown has traded in her stark white paint for another monochromatic palette, coating her polyurethane sculptures in black. For her solo presentation with 56 Henry, the artist explores ethnobotany and Black life in America through renditions of collard greens, tobacco, corn, chicken wings, and more.

5. Gerard Mas at GBS Fine Art

Longtime Colossal readers will likely recognize this cheeky figure as one of Gerard Mas’ brazen busts. For the past few years, the Barcelona-based artist has been taking a playful, contemporary approach to sculpture, casting spirited women in a variety of witty roles.

6. Rhama Lhoussig at dmincubator

Merging abstraction and magical realism, Rhama Lhoussig paints vivid domestic scenes in which a recurring figure amuses herself with stuffed bears, flowers, toy blocks, and more. Crayon scribbles and crude line drawings fill the surrounding negative space, firmly placing the works in a dynamic moment of creativity.

7. Dee Clements with Mindy Solomon

Chicago’s own Dee Clements presents a suite of still-life paintings framed in hand-woven frames, alongside mixed-media sculpture and abstract tapestries.

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