Natalia Arbelaez’s figures, often built with clay, carry both humor and sadness in their strange forms. Her white ceramic sculptures, in particular, offer texture and personality that feel at once human and something subterranean. The Miami-born Colombian-American artist has excited her pieces across the U.S.
“The body plays an essential role in my work as it has a memory to it and memory extends itself to my ideas of the body,” the artist says, in a statement. “In my process of referencing the body, I have forgone the use of an actual and specific body. Because of this, I can use the memory of my own body, the body of my family, and ancestors to extend my memories to places beyond the body. In creating more of an essence of the body and not a likeness I am able to visit such personal and painful narratives that I find hard to confront.”
See more of her recent work below.
Madrid-based sculptor 
Oakland, California based artist 
In her recent sculptures, Qixuan Lim, also known as QimmyShimmy, continues to meld everyday objects with disconcerting elements. Her recent project, created for an upcoming show at Beinart Gallery next month, inserts one of her realistic organs into dumplings. Or as she says: “For those who wonder why your wontons are so wrinkly.” Her sculptures are crafted in polymer clay.