Last year, the Lofoten International Art Festival (LIAF) unveiled an expanded program of four international and Norwegian artist residency projects in small villages across the stringy, mountainous northwestern archipelago of islands. With a stupendous, overpowering landscape, the Lofoten Islands evoke particular qualities of light, ambience, and atmosphere, making them a place of places and a
It’s Personal: A Conversation with James Surls
Winner of the 2020 Lifetime Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award It’s been a long, strange trip over the last six decades for James Surls. His wood, bronze, and steel sculptures evoke a sense of ancient, present, and future worlds, from earthly landscapes to outer space, from visible nature to the inner eye.
Inhabiting Resilience: A Conversation with Rita Simoni
Rita Simoni produces the kinds of works that don’t fit into ordinary spaces. Her multidisciplinary practice covers the entire spectrum of visual art, from painting, photography, video, and digital design to sculpture and site-specific installation. Originally trained as an architect, Simoni, who is based in Argentina, focuses her attention on the creative possibilities of color and space.
Object Lessons: Mildred Howard
When I got this commission from the County of Sacramento and the Sacramento Airport, they requested a house—something consistent with my many previous house-shaped sculptures and installations. I began by conducting research, reading the letters of those who came to California during the Gold Rush.
Anxious Objects: A Conversation with Anna Reading
The futuristic blends with the primordial in the work of British sculptor Anna Reading. Her otherworldly forms call to mind remnants of a crashed space capsule overgrown with foreign matter or submerged manmade structures that have succumbed to marine accretions.
Paula Winokur: Formative Landscapes
Paula Winokur’s sculptures, which resonate with dignified authority and considered focus, take porcelain to its limits and transform it beyond expectations. Organic forms built with a sense of restraint declare her resolve through thoughtful attention to detail.
Trevor King: Understanding Utility
Trevor King’s ceramic sculptures aim to understand utility. Over the course of his career, he has quietly but steadily been building a body of work that is autobiographical, sure in its handling, and aware of the contemporary art scene.
Punto de Quiebre: Una Conversación con Carla Beretta
Desde la ciudad de Rosario, la artista plástica Carla Beretta trabaja un corpus de obra que trasciende los límites de lo bidimensional, experimentando con trabajos con una fuerte impronta del grabado y los textiles, superando los soportes tradicionales—por ejemplo la planimetría del papel—para invadir el espacio con objetos e instalaciones.
Passing Through Hands: A Conversation with Lenka Clayton
Lenka Clayton’s work is a network of connections based in the narrative and poetic potential embodied in objects. Each of her dynamic projects offers a tangible link to stories and geographic locations. She connects communities and individuals while offering a bit of magic, which can often be found in the smallest places.
Languages Not Yet Spoken: A Conversation with Fernando Casasempere
Fernando Casasempere has worked with porcelain and stoneware for four decades, introducing rich textures into his surfaces. His poetic, abstract forms are partly inspired by pre-Columbian art and partly by the landscape of his native Chile.
