2026-05-13 03:00:00
Throughout her illustrious 32-year career, Pacita Abad (1946-2004) traveled to more than 60 countries. Myriad experiences ultimately introduced her to a wide range of techniques, materials, and relationships, shaping the artist’s practice over time. Movement provided an enduring source of new ideas and inspiration, and as she put it, “For me, traveling is my art school.”
In the spring of 1998, Abad visited Yemen. At the time, the country was still in recovery following the Yemeni Civil War, which took place four years prior. Grounded in her rigorous political engagement and the instabilities experienced in her native Philippines, Abad reflected on the immutable significance of cultural practices and their value despite periods of upheaval.
“Rather than positioning herself within a nameable lineage of artistic influences who moved in conventional gallery spaces,” Tina Kim Gallery notes, “Abad instead favored the inheritance of historically anonymous workers in craft, textiles, and the decorative arts, from locations outside of established Western institutional and market infrastructure.” This quote appears in a statement for the New York gallery’s third solo exhibition of Abad’s works, titled Door to Life.
The presentation highlights a body of work Abad completed in subsequent years, which takes inspiration from Yemen’s vibrant, ornate displays of architecture and decoration. One particular focus was doors, which the gallery refers to as “portals.” Through countless photographs and numerous sketches of doorways she encountered on excursions, Abad created a prolific visual archive to take home and use as reference, adding “Everyday a new idea, everyday a new door.”
Crafted in her signature trapunto style, Abad’s vertical, rectangular compositions layer meaning, memories, and material. Painted and appliquéd geometric patterns on canvas call to decorative elements found in traditional Yemeni architecture, like tessellations and botanical motifs.
The artist’s series of never-before-seen qamariya paintings are evocative of the semicircular glass windows common in Sanaa, the nation’s capital—another key element of Yemen’s time-honored artisan practices. The Arabic term qamariya translates to “moon-like” or “of the moon,” echoing the glass structures’ half-moon shape and dynamic ability to transmit light.
Door to Life continues through June 20 at Tina Kim Gallery in New York. You can also flip through more works, which were previously compiled into a small publication that supplemented Abad’s initial Door to Life exhibition in 1999.
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2026-05-13 01:00:00
With a stained glass window, light filters through to illuminate narrative scenes or geometric patterns, but it’s primarily the window itself that draws our attention. For Lesley Green of Bespoke Glass, these vibrant compositions certainly aren’t limited to these traditional apertures. “One of my personal obsessions is trying to convince people to hang glass on the wall instead of in the window, so you can really experience the pure color and texture of the glass,” she tells Colossal.
Bespoke Glass creates a wide range of aesthetic and functional forms, conceived for both residential and commercial interiors. Some are designed to be screens or separators, such as behind a bar or between tables in a restaurant. Others are more sculptural, such as her three-dimensional sculptures that project onto the wall when the sun shines through them, interacting with local shadows. This display method also highlights the inherent textures of the glass itself, from waves to ridges to mottled patterns.
Using a hand-cut, traditional copper foil method of creating the stained glass, Green has also innovated some studio-developed techniques to produce three-dimensional objects. “Craftsmanship is extremely important to me as well,” she says. “Precise cuts and especially smooth solder lines are part of everything my studio produces.”
All pieces are available to be commissioned in custom colorways, and Green is also working on larger-scale versions of the sculptural works, plus multiple-piece collections designed to installed on the wall. See more on Instagram.
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2026-05-12 22:52:44
Riding the coattails—or perhaps it would be more apt to say the gown trails—of the monumental retrospective exhibition in 2023 in Paris at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, the Brooklyn Museum is about to open the striking new edition of Iris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses. Building upon the previous presentation’s emphasis on the way fashion meets art, this show also includes recent collections like Sympoeisis, reaffirming Iris van Herpen’s one-of-a-kind approach to sustainable, sculptural couture.
Van Herpen is known for her elaborate dresses that incorporate high-tech processes and materials, such as laser-cutting and Plexiglas, while also embracing the rhythms and patterns of biological and celestial realms. At this year’s Met Gala, for example, Olympic skier Eileen Gu arrived in a dress titled “Airu,” which was not only coated in plastic bubbles but also emitted real ones. In the “Living Algae” look from her 2025 Sympoeisis collection, van Herpen even incorporates real Pyrocystis lunula, a type of algae that forms a crescent shape and glows in the dark.
“Fascinated by the complexity of nature and the power of science, van Herpen transforms scientific concepts into visionary fashion,” says a statement. “Drawing from wide-ranging fields spanning mathematics, neuroscience, marine biology, paleontology, mycology, mineralogy, astronomy, and more, her haute couture designs seamlessly merge art, science, and technology—evoking the often unseen structures of nature, from coral reefs and branching systems of fungi to the vast patterns of planetary motion.”
Sculpting the Senses features more than 140 haute couture designs, plus the works of numerous artists like Kenny Nguyen, Wim Delvoye, Agostino Arrivabene, 目[Mé], Katsumata Chieko, Tara Donovan, and many others—several of whom have pieces in the Brooklyn Museum’s own collection. The experience is also complemented by a multi-sensory soundscape created by Dutch composer and music producer Salvador Breed.
The show opens on May 16 and continues through December 6 in Brooklyn. See more on van Herpen’s Instagram and YouTube.
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2026-05-12 03:41:22
For a little more than two decades, Bavarian photographer Markus Brunetti has scoured Europe for its most impressive basilicas, monasteries, duomi, and other striking ecclesiastical landmarks. Working closely with collaborator Betty Schöner, with whom he travels around the continent in a firetruck that has been converted to a photo lab, the pair snap thousands of images of each structure in meter-by-meter detail, often over the course of several years.
Through a meticulous editing process that includes layering and arranging each shot into composite images, Brunetti creates precise, high-resolution views of the facades that we never experience in real life. Perspective is skewed so that the ornate temples and cathedrals’ entrances are perfectly straight. Rather than the oblique view we usually get—think of how tall structures look when viewed from the street, with their base appearing wider and the top growing gradually narrower—we’re confronted with a striking one-point perspective.
Brunetti’s current solo exhibition, Facades IV at Yossi Milo, highlights a selection of the artist’s recent portraits, several of which were completed in the last couple of years. “Roma, Basilica di San Pietro,” for example, was initiated in 2007. “Brunetti and Schöner returned to St. Peter’s Basilica seven times over nineteen years,” the gallery says. “With each survey, they grew closer to realizing this grand image—a particular challenge given that it is one of the largest and most visited churches in the world.”
Printed at an impressively large scale—up to seven-and-a-half feet tall—the photos venerate these buildings, many of which are centuries old. “The result exceeds the possibilities of any single photograph, even at the highest possible resolution, creating works that stand as monuments in and of themselves,” the gallery says.
Facades IV continues through June 20 in New York City.
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2026-05-11 21:41:05
In ballpoint pen on found fragments of philosophical and historical texts, Habib Hajallie delves into the emotional realm of memory, connection, and loss. The Kent-based artist often celebrates Black cultural figures and beloved family members, along with examining his own personal experiences as a British man of Sierra Leonean and Lebanese heritage. In his current solo exhibition, Black & Blue at Larkin Durey, Hajallie grapples with the devastating stillbirth of his daughter and the “indescribable emotions that sit beneath language,” says the gallery.
For this show, the artist deliberately switched from using black ballpoint ink to blue. As he made these works, Hajallie also reflected on the loss of his sister four years ago. Using antique maps and snippets of philosophical and sociological writings, he portrays subtle sides of what the gallery describes as “an altered sense of self.” Figures, including several self-portraits, exude feelings of despair, confusion, numbness, care, and the nuanced emotions that emerge in-between.
“While this series is concerned with the internal landscape of loss and what it means to endure a profoundly altered reality, each artwork has acted as an invaluable step towards healing,” the gallery says. “By drawing directly onto antique texts that explore morality, purpose, and transcendence, Hajallie’s personal pain enters into a wider conversation about finding meaning and the ways in which drawing can become a space of solace and catharsis.”
Black & Blue continues through May 22 in London. See more on the artist’s Instagram.
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2026-05-11 19:00:00
Dear readers,
In a collection of her published diary entries, Virgina Woolf wrote, “Thinking is my fighting.” This sentiment was a prominent theme in her 1940 essay, Thoughts on Peace In an Air Raid, in which the British writer framed the importance of individual thought as a crucial antidote to war and the rise of fascism.
I’ve been thinking a lot about Woolf’s quote and its relevance today, largely connected to discourse on education. While literacy rates in the U.S. continue to plummet, a soaring number of individuals are adopting habits antithetical to thinking—offloading even the smallest of cognitive tasks onto Chat GPT, doomscrolling for hours on social media, and numbing the mind with addictive “brain rot.” Critical thinking is being traded for passive acceptance and the death of curiosity—all in the name of efficiency and capital innovation. Our minds have become the new commodity.
In response to this, I’ve seen a clear cultural shift toward self-education. I, too, have been influenced by this new wave of autodidactic learning—personal curricula, digital detoxes, reading challenges, etc. While these are certainly more examples of internet trends worming their way into our algorithms, beneath them lies something deeper: a collective desire to reclaim our own thoughts.
At the same time, access to quality information and educational materials can be hard to find, whether those resources are locked behind the gates of inflated tuition costs, class fees, or online paywalls. For Colossal, accessibility has always been an ongoing commitment. Over the last 15 years and counting, every article, interview, and instructional aid on our site has remained completely free. Our team believes that the ability to learn about and enjoy art must be universally available.
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Jake F.
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Out of the classroom, learning persists, and we’ve been elated to hear many stories about how our daily doses of art allow readers to uncover something new everyday, gain more knowledge about contemporary art, and discover impactful stories that bring about change, connection, and hope.
Now more than ever, creative thought must be nurtured, protected, and free from barriers. Our mission to do this can only continue with you. Today, only 1% of Colossal readers financially support the work we do. Like many independent publications, our members are the cornerstone of our existence and ability to continue sharing art with the world.
We encourage you to join the Colossal community. Now is the time to spread creative ideas, revive curiosity, and defend the ability to think and learn imaginatively.
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Gratefully,
Jackie Andres
Online editor, Colossal
Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Creative Thought Is Essential: A Letter from Our Editor appeared first on Colossal.