The Photography and Sculptures of Mari Katayama
Mari Katayama’s photography uses her own body as one of her materials. Born with a rare congenital disorder, the artist had her legs amputated as a child, and at times, her sculptural work emulates the features of her body that the condition caused. The resulting work explores identity, anxiety, and other topics.
“Her belief is that tracing herself connects with other people and her everyday life can be also connected with the society and the world, just like the patchwork made with threads and a needle by stitching borders,” a statement says. “In addition to her art creation, Katayama leads ‘High heel project’ in which she wore customized high-heeled shoes specially made for prosthesis to perform on stage as a singer, model, or keynote speaker. The motto of this project is to take advantage of any means including art and disabled body if it helps to expand the ‘freedom of choice’ for those in desperate need.”
Patti Warashina is a Pacific Northwest based artist known for her imaginative ceramic sculptures that are full of wit and sarcasm. At age 76, she does not stop inventing. Featured here on our blog, her clay figures are usually placed in fantasy environments, where she uses sculpture to explore such themes as the human condition, feminism, car-culture, and political and social topics.
Austrian artist Klaus Pinter explores the potential of the space around us with his fantastical floating installations. Usually suspended in mid air, his giant artworks are at once light, fluid, soft, and mechanical. They are also incredibly bizarre, created using a combination of different textures and inflatable materials like plastic and nylon. Many who see his works describe them as curious flying machines and angelic cocoons, speaking to the artist's ability to alter our perceptions, even the way we see famous landmarks from the Pantheon in Rome to the Seine waterway in Paris.
In Erika Sanada’s “Cover My Eyes,” running through July 30 at Modern Eden Gallery in San Francisco, viewers find a new batch of ceramic sculptures from the Japanese artist. Sanada's “dogs” typically feature at least one physical mutation and represent ongoing anxieties in the artist's life. She explains the addition of new animals this time around: “The rats and birds present with the dogs are further extensions of myself and my fears. Birds, like my anxieties, are difficult to contain and control, and are always a part of me and my work.” The artist was featured in Hi-Fructose Vol. 31.
Tamara Kostianovsky, an Israel-born, Argentina-raised artist, uses pieces of clothing—including her own—to construct meat carcasses that recreated muscle, bone, and cartilage. Her "Actus Reus" series places these gruesome, yet engrossing creations on meat hooks. While the soft nature of the material may not recall our insides, Kostianovsky’s reproductions still unsettle in their faithfulness to butchered bodies. Her "Still Lives" series takes a similar approach, yet maintains part of the emulated exterior of animal bodies (along with grander presentation).
This year, 
Swiss photographer 
Andrea Salvatori subverts art-historical themes and motifs in his sculptures, reimagining the interior of Renaissance-style figures or unsettling forms emerging from pottery. He moves between traditional and digital means to execute these works.
