Margarita Sampson turns ordinary furniture into alluring fabric sculptures made up of organic shapes and sumptuous textures. Inspired by the scenery of her native Norfolk Island, a small island near Australia, Sampson is interested in the ways that invasive plant species can take over a landscape. For her Salon series, she turned antique chairs into growth sites for forms that resemble expanding coral reefs, barnacles, and sea anemones. “The recent ‘Salon’ series pitches overweening growths onto a host chair, which begins to succumb or bend under the weight,” writes Sampson. “Poised at a juncture, there are many scenarios that could evolve… the chair is buried in soft forms? They outgrow themselves and die out? They take over an entire room? You? That’s the excitement and the tension I seek when working on a piece.”
Geng Xue’s ceramic sculptures, with their traditional coloring and textures, appear as beings evolving and emerging from our shelves. She’s used these creations in multimedia exhibition and even filmmaking, animating them into mythology-inspired narratives. As she creates representations of humanity, Xue seems to be reflecting on our own fragility.
With his sculptures of multitudes of identical, disaffected, middle-aged men,