The “Earth” without “Art” is just “Eh.”
Surrounding ourselves with beautiful things is very important for our general well-being. We understand it at the subconscious level. As a result, we subscribe to fancy clothes shops or beauty salons on Instagram.
Alongside practical subscriptions, it is a great idea to subscribe to modern artists. Let us draw a parallel example. From a practical standpoint, you can have a reliable essay writing service like EssayPro in your bookmarks. For a bigger purpose, you can follow a modern writer. This will enrich your artistic potential and vocabulary.
Most people just follow bloggers, celebrities, and influencers. If we are talking about art, the majority prefer painters and poets. It feels like the Instagram society underestimates modern sculpture artists. However, they create marvelous masterpieces that transmit meaningful messages. Let us fix this injustice.
Young European Sculptors
- Mariana Castillo Deball
Originally from Mexico, this artist works and lives in Berlin. In her works, she claims that our present is impossible without knowing the past. So what helps her create sculptures that prove the value of history? She communicates with people through artifacts. Mariana is a big fan of archeology, ethnography, and museology. Past works even included totems.
- Julia Phillips
A German artist who works in Berlin (and Chicago). Her sculptural installations unveil the topic of traumatic events. Her sculptures are devices for sexual domination, corporal constraint, or medical operations. What you see makes you think about unnecessary violence. Julia achieves this by using metal armatures, casts of body parts, and ceramic muzzles.
- Jala Wahid
If you are a student on a budget visiting London, you might want to visit affordable places of interest. Tate Modern and the National Gallery are probably on your list of places to attend. But it is not a big deal if you don’t get a chance to go. Follow a London artist Jala Wahid. You will enjoy her works if you like grotesque.
- Monika Grabuschnigg
Like Julia Phillips, Monika often uses metal armatures as well as acrylics and resin in her works. But thanks to pastel shades, they appeal to our emotional states – intimate desires, connections, and longings. Her sculptures look like surreal fetish objects. Her recent exhibition in Dubai shows how we built relationships with each other in our digital age.
- Kris Lemsalu
This Estonian artist from Tallinn is famous for pushing materials to unexpected places. She often combines ceramic sculpture with found materials. This gives an ambiguity to her works. Later, they often become props and stages for performances.
Modern Asian Sculpture Artists
- Guan Xiao
This Chinese artist creates sculptural arrangements that can feel flat despite their three-dimensional form. Her creations are surrealistic objects imagined in Second Life. Installing one of them in your shared apartment may not be the best idea. But they are definitely worth your attention.
- Yasue Maetake
Originally from Japan, this artist lives and works in Queens, New York. Initially, she trained in glass engraving. No wonder she scrupulously chooses the material for her future masterpieces. Yasue uses wood, steel, and resin to shape large sci-fi forms. Wind-flexed sails are an example of her elegant paper constructions.
US Sculptors You Should Follow
- Doreen Garner
This artist from Brooklyn ‘retells history through sliced flesh.’ Her sculptures suggest medical experiments, festering wounds, and mutant body parts. The aim of her three-dimensional works is to help people understand their own physical bodies. It’s not like in biology lessons, of course. Doreen aims to show how deep the wounds go. And how important the acknowledgment is to begin healing.
- Genesis Belanger
Her sculptures are full of humor and surrealism. They satirically highlight human foibles and appetites. They reflect instinctual parts of our psychology. What are the works made of? ‘I have never met a tool or material I did not like,’ says the Brooklyn artist.
- Rosha Yaghmai
This artist from LA started as a photographer. But flat photos were not good enough for her. So she switched to three-dimensional objects. It was a successful path from darkroom to multidimensional installations.
- Letha Wilson
This artist from Brooklyn also creates objects at the edge of photography and sculpture, image and form. Let us give you an example by describing one of her 2018 works. It was a giant digital photograph. It depicted a vividly colored sky. Besides, there was a steel beam inserted into the middle of the image. It clearly showed how Letha loves to play with the materiality of a photograph.
- Juliana Cerqueira Leite
This NY sculptor often creates her works in the following way: she casts her own body parts in clay or plaster. She physically tunneled through a wooden column filled with wet clay to produce her Climb in 2012. Then she cast the emptiness left by her body. Isn’t that amazing?
All her works and the way they are made get one very important message across. We all can transform the world around us. Not reassert the world as it is but transmute it.
- Sarah Peters
If you see sculptures with:
- bronze heads
- towering beards
- accentuated locks
- or sunken eye sockets,
you are probably looking at the works of ancient Greeks, Egyptians, or Sumerians. If it is a modern work of art, though, there is a fat chance it belongs to Sarah Peters from Queens in NY. She believes in the power of historical tradition. The way Sarah explains it, she ‘merges ancient and contemporary vocabularies in her way.’
- Sydney Shen
The diabolical vision is a leitmotif of her sculptures. No limits here. Here is a small quiz for you. What did her past works NOT incorporate:
- her own blood
- heady odors
- video games
- cloves, oil, and vinegar
- none of the above
The right answer here is e) because her exhibitions included all of the aforementioned items! You can also often meet scorpions and spiders in her works. They symbolize the menacing environment outside of our control.
8. Natalie Ball
This artist from Oregon uses toys, synthetic hair, old clothes, and sometimes even animal remains. She calls her sculptures power objects. A lot of them are humorous, though. Consider her Pussy Hat (2018). It was a patchwork made from abalone shells, human hair, boxing gloves, balaclavas, and toilet paper rolls.
9. Davina Semo
Davina’s aim is to transmit the experience of walking down the street through her objects. It seems that they absorb the surroundings. Their texture, color, substance, and line awaken our senses. As for the materials, this artist from San Francisco uses a harmonious blend of natural and manmade ones.
10. Gabriela Salazar
You will love her if you are fond of minimalist gestures. This artist from Brooklyn, NY, works with everything:
- coffee grounds
- mass-produced bricks
- discarded wood
- plastic tubing
- piles of concrete
- metal beams
One of her main messages is very simple. Human life is vulnerable.
Be smART
Art is everywhere. You should only learn to read it like books. And we all know, most of the time, we have to read between the lines to understand the true intentions of the author. There is a term ‘watchfulness.’ The more you watch something, the more you understand it. So follow the young sculpture artists in this article to bring your watchfulness up.
