He teaches digital media at Los Angeles Harbor College, but that doesn’t deter sculptor Joshua Abarbanel from appreciating a strong tie to nature. His incredible wood sculptures are a reflection of his dual interests in technology and the natural world. Using mix of digital, mechanical tools and handiwork, he first designs his dynamic pieces on the computer, then crafts them by hand in way that feels organic. Recent works combine influences from Romantic landscape, environmental art, and wabi-sabi.
“I’ve been transfixed with the idea of trying to see the unseen,” he says, likening the balance of nature to poetry. Almost like the gears of a clock, the stained and unstained wood pieces are fitted together, sometimes with concrete and other materials, forming arrangements resembling biological growths, coral reefs or delicate, microscopic fractals. His compositions act as metaphors for relationships between people, individuals and communities, and humankind and the planet.
“As an artist, I explore forms and patterns, especially the colors, shapes, and compositions found in biological, botanical, and geological structures. I am interested in the relationship between the individual elements of structures and the larger forms of which they are a part,” he says. “In many ways we all have one story we continually tell and mine is the relationship of the things that are almost unseeable and the interconnection of all life forms.”
Masaya Hashimoto's images of pure white plants might not look like anything remarkable until you realize what they are made out of: the self taught artist crafts them out of the fine bone and antlers from deer near his home in Japan. In some ways, his sculptures are a byproduct of where he lived for nearly a decade, a mountain Buddhist temple where he was given the chance to closely observe the life cycle of plants and flowers like irises and chrysanthemums.
Hans Hemmert uses balloon sculptures to explore the idea of space and form, having the objects take the place of human figures and massive structures. The artist evolved from the human-sized, yellow works of the 1990s to a recent assemblage that takes the shape of an enormous tank.
Amsterdam based artist