It's the fourth day of Christmas and we're going small in a big way, with four beautiful micro artworks, proving that bigger isn't always better when it comes to art.
Micro Matters by Amsterdam based designer Rosa de Jong, is a project to create gravity defying vertical dwellings on a micro scale.
These architectural landscapes were created using natural materials as well as traditional modelling materials such as faux moss, but have been squeezed into the confines of glass test tubes. By doing this, Jong creates a tantalising cross section, both above and below ground of a micro world, as though they had just been plucked from the earth. There's something vaguely extra terrestrial about how these micro art works existence within their glass tubes.
Did anyone watch the Great British Pottery Throw Down? I've been obsessed with the idea of learning to make ceramics since uni, unfortunately DJCAD lost its ceramics department a year or two before I arrived there, so I never got my chance to try that particular craft. However, the Pottery Throw Down has just renewed my interest and I've learnt a term which will be handy when talking about the incredible micro ceramics by Jon Almeda.
Washington based Almeda's miniature hand thrown pots are created using a method known as throwing off the hump. This technique involves using a larger quantity of clay, formed into a cone on the potters wheel and then a multiple small ceramic items being thrown from the top of the clay cone, one after another. Due to the micro nature of these particular ceramics, while the technique for their formation is the same, Almeda uses as custom made miniature throwing wheel, with a two inch wheel head to create his one inch scale design. And despite their tiny size, each bowl, vase and teapot is fully capable of going through the traditional glazing and firing process, to change them from fragile clay into hardened ceramic, with beautiful coloured glazes, textured surfaces and unbelievably fine levels of detail.
It's such a shame so many art schools have lost their ceramics departments, I for one may have gone a different direction had it been offered.
Moving away from three dimensional art, here is an art form which unlike ceramics, art schools still offer - painting. But these paintings by Cape Town based artist Lorraine Loots all come in at under three centimetres a piece.
Entitled comically, "Paintings for Ants," Loots has been creating one miniature painting a day since January 1st 2013, each with a different theme and leading to the artist creating paintings of landscapes, objects, film characters, icons, animals and whatever she desires, all to the tiny three centimetre scale. Though, she has recently varied from the 365 day painting scheme, Loots changed to a Potluck 100 project in 2015, giving herself themed titles to work from, including: Microcosm Mondays, Tiny Tuesdays, Fursdays and Free Fridays, on which 100 paintings would be created over a twenty five week period. Though which weeks they would be created would be announced randomly throughout this year, therefore the Potluck aspect of the project would end up being the dates not the subjects, in a complete about turn to her previous project.
I love this project, how delicate and detailed her paintings are, neither of which are lacking due to her micro scale and the idea of initially having to force yourself to create a new piece every day before gradually it becomes less a chore and more a compulsion. Every year, I talk (to myself) about trying to do a 365 day project, whether it be drawings like Loots, or rings as a few jewellers have done before. Perhaps this year, shall be the year.
Finally there is this, which look like the perfect micro photograph of a grass field. However, it is so much more than that. Created by Patrick Jacobs, these are incredibly detailed, magnified micro dioramas.
Made out of materials such as styrene, acrylic, cast neoprene, paper, polyurethane foam, ash, talc, starch, vinyl film, copper, wood and steel, Jacobs dioramas of landscapes and cramped apartments, can take anywhere from several week to two years to complete. With such hyper realistic detail, where each clump of grass, each petal or architectural detail is handmade and loving placed within the dioramas internal casing, is that unsurprising?
Once they're completed, the dioramas are fitted into the wall of the gallery and sealed inside, with only a magnifying glass (as small as three inches in diameter) to allow the viewer a sneak a peek at the intricate scenes. It's voyeuristic, but in a calming, ideal life kind of a way.
... four micro art forms...
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