Menu
The New Contemporary Art Magazine

Jacky Tsai Seeks to Dispell Superstitions With Floral “Skullptures”

Chinese-born, London-based artist Jacky Tsai brings his fashion-world experience to his interdisciplinary art projects, which often fuse illustration, printmaking, sewing and sculpture. Tsai says that he is fueled by his contrasting experiences living in both Eastern and Western cultures. With his skull sculptures (or "Skullptures" as Tsai refers to them) and illustrations, the artist combines the morbid with the ornate. These symbols of death and decay become the sites of regeneration as flowers blossom on the skulls like moss — a juxtaposition Tsai uses as an antidote to his native culture's superstitions about death.

Chinese-born, London-based artist Jacky Tsai brings his fashion-world experience to his interdisciplinary art projects, which often fuse illustration, printmaking, sewing and sculpture. Tsai says that he is fueled by his contrasting experiences living in both Eastern and Western cultures. With his skull sculptures (or “Skullptures” as Tsai refers to them) and illustrations, the artist combines the morbid with the ornate. These symbols of death and decay become the sites of regeneration as flowers blossom on the skulls like moss — a juxtaposition Tsai uses as an antidote to his native culture’s superstitions about death.

Tsai’s most iconic motif, his flower skull image was made famous when he designed a textile pattern for fashion designer Alexander McQueen’s spring/summer 2008 menswear collection. While the drawings and Skullptures are typically small-scale, Tsai recently created a 1.6-meter-long sculpture of a skull, which he embellished with individually-sewn leather flowers. After his work with McQueen, Tsai started his own eponymous luxury fashion line, Jacky Tsai, in 2011 and continues to create sculptures, installations and 2D work.

Meta
Share
Facebook
Reddit
Pinterest
Email
Related Articles
Spanish artist Isaac Cordal recently made Montreal, Canada his playground by hiding miniature cement figures around the city. Covered here on our blog, his art reflects on society by recreating scenes of everyday life with a sense of gloom. In a way, it is a combination of sculpture and photography- a photo can speak a thousand words when it captures his work at just the right moment. For his upcoming exhibition "Urban Inertia" at C.O.A. Gallery, Cordal placed his figures in muddy puddles, cracks in sidewalks and walls, and other unassuming places.
Separately, each artificial nail used by South African artist Frances Goodman is a temporary, expendable object. But when the artist combines them into a single sculpture, she depicts living, “bodily forms” that defy their nature. “Some of the sculptures are abstract and consider ideas of oozing, spreading, and writhing,” the artist says, in a statement. “Others suggest snakes and scaled creatures.”
At Burlington City Arts, Crystal Wagner's first-ever work existing in both the interior and exterior of a space comes with "Traverse." Wagner is known for biomorphic creations that span sculpture, prints, and installations. This exhibition, running through Oct. 2, features a site-specific installation that "grows from floor to ceiling and emerges outside to meander across the exterior façade." Wagner was last featured on HiFructose.com here.
Conrad Roset is a watercolor and ink artist based out of his studio in Barcelona, Spain. Roset, who was profoundly influenced at a young age by the enigmatic Expressionist, Egon Scheile, explores the sensuality and fragility of the feminine form. Roset’s new paintings are a continuation of his “Muses” project, in which the artist searches for beauty in the effects of the watercolor and black India ink washes.

Subscribe to the Hi-Fructose Mailing List