Jason deCaires Taylor has spent more than a decade crafting underwater sculptures that create living reefs, improving the surrounding ecosystem at a time when 40 percent of coral reefs have disappeared over the past decades. His recent pieces including 48 life-sized figures in Indonesian waters and a recently installed an initial phase of his underwater art museum, The Coralarium. Taylor last appeared on HiFructose.com here.
During the past couple years, the sculptor’s work has been attached to controversy, for how similar Damien Hirst’s recent work appears to Taylor’s. Hirst was accused of lifting Taylor’s aesthetic. “After viewing Hirst’s latest exhibition it seems I have certainly created an art genre that has been responded to, but his marine facsimiles are very different in context from my living installations,” Taylor said at the time. “If people really want to see ‘unbelievable treasures’ they should look below the surface of our seas at the real live wonders of the blue world—nature does not lie.”
See more of Taylor’s work below.
Mexican artist Damián Ortega (covered 
Diana Al-Hadid’s ghostly sculptures, which take influence from historical architecture, mythology, and beyond, are currently inhabiting both a gallery at Frist Art Museum and outdoor gardens at Cheekwood in concurrent exhibitions in Nashville. “Subliminations” collects varying types of work from the artist, with both figurative sculpture and wall reliefs. Above and below interior photos are by John Schweikert.
Primarily using newspapers and tape,