Menu
The New Contemporary Art Magazine

Erika Sanada Continues Her Creepy-Cute Sculptural Series in “Balancing Act”

Animals take on a special meaning in San Francisco based artist Erika Sanada's work, whose sculptures of cute "zombified" puppies, rats, and baby birds represent a sort of escapism from her anxiety. In an effort to embrace and defeat her demons, so to speak, Sanada created her "Odd Series", which was featured on our blog back in August and in Hi-Fructose Vol. 31. Since that time, her sculptures have evolved into more positive displays of her characters, who often interact with eachother in playful chases and tug of wars. Sanada expands on her ongoing series with her solo exhibition, "Balancing Act", now on view at Abmeyer + Wood Fine Art in Seattle.

Animals take on a special meaning in San Francisco based artist Erika Sanada’s work, whose sculptures of cute “zombified” puppies, rats, and baby birds represent a sort of escapism from her anxiety. In an effort to embrace and defeat her demons, so to speak, Sanada created her “Odd Series”, which was featured on our blog back in August and in Hi-Fructose Vol. 31. Since that time, her sculptures have evolved into more positive displays of her characters, who often interact with eachother in playful chases and tug of wars. Sanada expands on her ongoing series with her solo exhibition, “Balancing Act”, now on view at Abmeyer + Wood Fine Art in Seattle. As the title may suggest, her creepy-cute cast of characters balance each other out as metaphors for the artists’ own emotions; the puppies symbolize the protagonist, or stand-in for the artist herself, while the rats and birds are usually the antagonists. For example, in Sanada’s world, rats are symbolic of obstacles or problems that she must be overcome, an idea which she reinforces with various visual puns of rats hanging off of her puppies’ ears and noses. Take a look at more works from “Balancing Act” below, on view at Abmeyer + Wood Fine Art alongside works by Calvin Ma through January 2nd, 2016.

Meta
Share
Facebook
Reddit
Pinterest
Email
Related Articles
First featured in Hi-Fructose Vol. 8, and soon, our exhibition with Virgina MOCA in 2016, Barnaby Barford builds vignettes and installations out of found figurines that he cuts up and reassembles. The objects he uses for his materials are some that most people would dismiss in their original form, but Barford's art makes them relevant and alluring. For his latest installation, "Tower of Babel", the artist's process began when he cycled over 1,000 miles to photograph facades from each of London's postcodes.
A veritable expert on the subject of recycling, Czech artist Veronika Richterova uses PET bottles to create whimsical sculptures that are visually appealing and educational. PET bottles are the common, plastic bottles in which most soft drinks are sold. While easy to recycle and remake into other items, most people associate these bottles with pollution in the world's landscapes and oceans. With her imaginative sculptures, Richterova inspires her viewers to reconsider the waste they put into the environment and find creative, new uses of their discarded items. Check out her cactus-inspired plastic bottle sculptures below.
Syria-born artist Khaled Dawwa, who creates under the name Clay & Knife, crafts periled, anticipating sculptured figures influenced by his own experiences. The artist, according to a statement, was “injured in a 2013 bombing, then arrested, imprisoned, and now exiled.” He’s currently based in France.
The concept of the Wunderkammer, aka The Cabinet Of Curiosities has been an artistic inspiration for some time, however a new show opening in November by Ryan Matthew Cohn and Jean Labourdette takes it up a notch with an exceptional show of sculptures and paintings based thematically on the subject. Click to read the new Hi-Fructose exclusive interview.

Subscribe to the Hi-Fructose Mailing List