Swiss artist Urs Fischer, based in New York, adapts the human face into topographical forms in his paintings. Works like “Landscape,” above, are crafted from aluminum panel, reinforced polyurethane foam, epoxy, acrylic ink, primer, paint, and silkscreen, and gesso. These paintings reorganize visages into landscapes, with the artist’s own face used in differing ways. The recent show “Mind Moves,” erected at Gagosian Gallery in San Francisco, was accompanied by a quote from the artist: “At its core, art is all about order. When you’re an artist, you basically arrange, rearrange, or alter; you play off order.”
Fischer is a Zurich native, and he’s had solo exhibitions across the world, including Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, Stedelijk Museum Bureau in Amsterdam, and Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.
As the gallery described the body of work “Mind Moves” in the fall: “Fischer’s own lips, nose, and eyebrows are freed from self-portraiture, instead becoming shapes that slide and mutate, melting and hardening in bright hues. With this series, Fischer recalls the compositional structures of grand landscape painting, presenting the two halves of his own face as topographical masses, propping gently against one another.”
For years, 
Life and death are major themes explored through the work of 
London based sculptor Rachel Kneebone is well known for her complex porcelain pieces that contain writhing groupings of human figures. Her work has been described as depicting an "erotic state of flux" and "celebrating forms of transgression, beauty and seduction," influenced by ancient Greek and Roman myths and also the modern human experience- you can find aspects of change, death, growth, renewal, and lust dissolved together in her individual pieces.