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.”
The 
Based in Seoul, Korea, 
Bangkok-born artist 
Blending two- and three-dimensional forms, Mark Whalen creates cerebral and absurd arrangements of the human body. Whether stacking vibrant heads or using sculpted hands to sculpt the very shapes of canvases, there’s a metatextual component in tackling the act of creating art itself.