Art News

Spanish artist Àngela Maria Sierra, who works as Riso Chan, explores the human psyche through subtly layered foliage. “I always imagine that they are someone’s soul, what we don’t see, our nature,” Sierra says of the delicate botanical assemblages that she overlays onto her subjects’ faces and torsos. Each portrait begins with a focus on texture and pattern as the artist paints clusters of twigs and leaves with watercolor. She then scans those botanical elements and uses Procreate to superimpose the figure onto the original piece. More

An eclectic array of installations recently popped up at the Navy Yard in Philadelphia, transforming the historic neighborhood into a temporary wonderland teeming with quirky characters, large-scale interventions, and optimism. A life-size piñata shaped like a 1984 Thunderbird is parked on 12th Street, cross-stitched roses trail across the brick facade of Building 99, and a typographic message casts shadows on a pavilion in a call for hope. Officially titled Mystery Island and the Marvelous Occurrence of Spontaneous Art, or MIMOSA, the entirely outdoor exhibition includes work from seven artists DAKU (previously), Justin Favela (previously), Kid Hazo with South Fellini, Reed Bmore, Liesbet Bussche, and Raquel Rodrigo (previously). More

After a slew of houseplant casualties, Mabel Low decided to trade in her withering blooms for a more durable option. The Singapore-based artist, who launched the studio Papersynthesis in 2020, crafts lifelike hydrangeas, sunflowers, and an array of succulents entirely from cardstock. She sculpts each form with precision, adding in the delicate veins marking a leaf or the curled edges of a petal. An array of air plants, orchids, and lush bouquets are available for purchase in Papersynthesis’s shop, and you can follow Low’s progress on Instagram. More

 Set to subdued music, Nicolas Lichtle’s short film titled “à la fin…” is an unusually ethereal depiction of the crises climaxing in 2020. The delicate animation flows through a series of lightly-hued scenes that explore reactions to COVID-19, the wildfires raging across the planet, and the endless distractions of technology. “It’s a moment of introspection, very intimate, staged through a succession of small moments imbued with poetry, absurdity, and sometimes surrealism…” Lichtle writes. More

Based in South West Devon, Victoria Rose Richards (previously) accentuates the textures and patterns of landscapes through her aerial embroideries. She depicts sprawling forests with tufts of French knots and employs satin and seed stitches to form the tight, straight rows of farmland. Richards tells Colossal that in recent months, she’s added minuscule details, “like gates, sheep, birds, and people to the whole piece to build more story,” in addition to more fantastical elements, like multicolored fields. More