Ellen Jewett’s handsculpted and handpainted “natural history surrealist sculptures” add surreal and sometimes-whimsical touches to wild creatures. Her recent works include the fantastical “the burden of motion and ambition” bear, which seems ripped from its own narrative, and the winged “”of illumination and empathy.” Jewett was last featured on HiFructose.com here.
The artist offers this on her studio practice: “While I seek to free my mind to the imaginative process, I am always simultaneously striving to refine my working environment,” she says. “I abstain from all materials; clay, paints, glazes, finishes and mediums, that have known toxic properties. This, unavoidably, excludes most of what is commonly commercially available, and has sent me on a journey of unique material combination and invention. This exploration is a large part of the unconventional look and feel of my work. Where possible I source the natural, the local, the low impact and, always, the authentic.”
See more of her recent work below.
Kara Walker's recent Hyundai Commission is a 45-foot-high fountain at Tate Modern, exploring the historical tether between Africa, America and Europe with inspiration from the Victoria Memorial in London. Water, Tate says, has its own significance in the work, “referring to the transatlantic slave trade and the ambitions, fates and tragedies of people from these three continents.” The title of the work: “Fons Americanus.”
Whether rendered life-sized in resin and paint or smaller and 3D-printed, 
The sculptures of 
Japanese fashion designer