I gave the most simple update to these glass topped nesting tables! Hello sweet friends! It’s that Tuesday time again. Trashy Treasures Tuesday, that is. I’m sharing a cutie patootie little set of glass-topped nesting tables today. I found them at the ReStore, just sitting there so sad and wonky. But you know I brought...
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One of the most common sights in cities is birds perched on power lines, although it rarely elicits a second look. Starlings chortle, pigeons coo, and the occasional hawk perches on a pole to scan the ground for its next meal. And yet, as normal as this seems, there’s nothing natural about it. Instead of trees, these feathered creatures rely on whatever infrastructure is around them, from wires and pylons to fences and rooftops.
For Ohio-based artist Rachel Mentzer, nature’s resilience is central to a practice focused on sustainability and environmental renewal. Her work “invites viewers to reflect on the interplay between human activity and the natural world, emphasizing the adaptability and fragility of nature,” says a statement.
Mentzer’s practice emphasizes collagraphy, an intaglio printmaking technique in which flattened materials—especially paper and card but also other items like leaves or acrylic surfaces—can be used to create a plate from which to make prints. She meticulously carves the delicate surfaces of found cartons with motifs of birds, trees, and energy infrastructure, then brushes them in polyurethane to preserve and prepare them for printing. Occasionally, she also employs chine collé, which uses delicate papers, to add colorful backgrounds.
The artist then coats the design with ink, wipes off the excess, and places the damp substrate into an etching press to transfer the image to a larger sheet of paper, producing the final piece. Thanks to the pressure of the transfer and the way the ink seeps into every handmade and incidental mark, the final print reveals a textural composition with crisp outlines. Birds and urban details alike are inextricable from the silhouette of a material that may have otherwise been destined for the landfill, summoning a constant reminder of the relationship between humans and nature.
Mentzer’s work was recently included in the Manhattan Graphics Center’s community print studio exhibition, and this summer, she’s looking forward to participating in the Suzanne Wilson Artist-in-Residence Program at Glen Arbor Arts Center in Michigan. See the artist’s process on her website, where you can also check if she will be at an art fair in your area throughout the spring and summer. See more on Instagram.
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When Moffat Takadiwa sees a pile of rubbish—old technology parts, personal care items, clothing—he doesn’t just see a bunch of junk. The Harare, Zimbabwe-based artist has spent the better part of two decades collecting thousands upon thousands of pieces of plastic and metals foraged from landfills near the city’s Mbare neighborhood, where heaps of electronic equipment waste, also known as e-waste, ends up in illicit dump sites. In his studio, vast collections of colorful objects are meticulously sorted into collections.
Takadiwa is known for his elaborate sculptures made from what he describes as “everyday consumer residue”—discarded computer keyboard keys, toothbrush heads, plastic combs, buttons, and more. The colors, textures, and patina of wear and age produce patterns that it’s tempting to describe as “organic,” even though the materials are the opposite.
The artist’s current solo exhibition, The Crown! at Semiose, highlights the tension not only between visual harmony, consumer culture, and waste but also those of what curator Fernanda Brenner describes in the exhibition essay as “the tensions of Africa’s post-colonial afterlife.” Takadiwa describes it as the “colonial hangover.” For instance, afro combs appear throughout the show, “rooted in African traditions and the colonial self-fashioning they forced,” Brenner says. “Once tools for grooming and ritual, these combs now bear the weight of resistance and pride in Black political life.”
Takadiwa’s compositions drape, tapestry-like, with repetitive patterns and textures that alternate between softness and brittleness. From the distance, the details of unique components blur into a fabric-like substrate, but upon closer inspection, nail polish brushes, caps, and keyboard keys in various states of aged yellowing emerge as individual tributes to overconsumption and excess. “The result is beautiful, which is where the trouble begins,” Brenner writes. She continues:
If beauty could settle old scores, the art world would have solved more than it has…Rearranging the materials does not erase their origins. If you have ever pressed ‘delete’ and believed the problem was gone, his work offers a quiet correction. Nothing disappears; it only travels, usually to places like Mbare, where Takadiwa opened his artist-run space in what used to be a colonial beer hall.
The Crown! continues through May 16 in Paris. See more on the artist’s Instagram.
Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Moffat Takadiwa’s Scrounged Sculptures Confront Africa’s ‘Colonial Hangover’ appeared first on Colossal.
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