In 1971, Faith Ringgold (1930-2024) received her first public art commission. New York City offered the late artist a $3,000 grant to paint a mural at the Women’s House of Detention on Rikers Island. After going inside and speaking with those incarcerated in the notorious prison, Ringgold decided to base the work around a request from one of the women about what she hoped the piece would depict: “I want to see a road leading out of here.”

In Ringgold’s characteristically bold palette, the resulting mural features more than a dozen figures, many of whom are employed in professions unavailable to women at the time. Vibrant and sliced into eight sections, “For the Women’s House” portrays doctors, bus drivers, basketball players, and the yet-to-be-realized vision of a woman as president. The large-scale work was a tribute to the deferred dreams of those who were locked up and a directive to reimagine the stereotypes put on incarcerated people.

According to ArtNet, the artist continued her relationship with the detained women and returned to the facility each month to provide “courses in subjects ranging from mask-making and theater to career counseling and drug addiction prevention.”

When Rikers Island transitioned to housing men in 1998, though, the Department of Corrections painted over the work, concealing it under a thick layer of white paint.

A new documentary directed by Catherine Gund chronicles Ringgold’s fight to regain control over the mural as it tells a broader story about the injustices of the U.S. justice system. Paint Me a Road Out of Here, released by Aubin Pictures, features conversations with Ringgold before her death last year, along with artist Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter, who has been commissioned to create a new work to replace “For the Women’s House.”

The film comes at a time when more artists who were formerly incarcerated are gaining attention as they point out the dehumanization and cruelty at the heart of the prison system. Jesse Krimes, for example, interrogates the material conditions of life inside as he incorporates soap bars, playing cards, newspapers, and bedsheets into his practice. And at a similarly infamous facility, artist Moath al-Alwi sculpts ships from cardboard, dental floss, and threads from his prayer cap while detained at Guantánamo Bay.

While the film shares the story of Ringgold’s nearly lost mural—which was relocated in 2022—it also speaks to the power of community and connection through art and making, particularly in places where despair and degradation are rampant. “Art gives us permission to imagine a world beyond what currently exists,” one interviewee in the film says.

Paint Me a Road Out of Here is currently screening at the Film Forum in New York. Keep an eye on Aubin Pictures’ website and Instagram for additional locations.

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Directed by Taliesin Black-Brown and narrated by Ramiro Vargas Chumpí Washikiat, “I Am the Nature” poetically plumbs the human interconnection with nature through the eyes of the Indigenous Achuar people. The short documentary honors the philosophy of a culture whose ancestral lands extend across the modern borders of Ecuador and Peru, deep in the Amazon rainforest. Today, Achuar still living in the rainforest continue to practice and preserve ancestral ways of life.

In the early 20th century, the government granted oil concessions that allowed industry to systematically move closer to the Achuar homeland. Further expansion and development in the region increased dramatically in the 1960s, initiating contact between the Achuar and the Western world.

Washikiat chronicles a vision he had as a boy, which foretold he would travel to the U.S. to learn English. In his journey, he observed incredible cultural and societal contrasts, such as individualism in place of collectivity, and yet his experiences away from the jungle instilled an ever deeper understanding that we are all children of the earth.

“I Am the Nature” introduces us to a way of life inextricably entwined with the surrounding environment, simultaneously reliant on and in harmony with nature. “We peacefully live in a simple way,” Washikiat says. “That’s what we would like to share to the world.”

The short film was an official selection in the 2024 DOC NYC documentary film festival and the 2024 Banff Center Mountain Film Festival, among others. See it on Vimeo.

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The creation of stained glass can be traced back to ancient Egypt and Rome, but we most often associate it with its popularity in Western Christianity, as in the biblical narratives adorning chapels and cathedrals. For Timo Fahler, this tradition forms the foundation of a multimedia practice influenced by Mesoamerican codice imagery, national symbols, and motifs found in older European churches.

Stained glass is a “storytelling medium in which I get to draw from everything I experience, everything I study, read, believe in, and even distrust,” Fahler tells Colossal. “We are floating in a unique era of questioning reality, the last gasp of the living generation before automation integrates itself via AI, ChatGPT, and digital interface.” He views his practice as depicting this era and even, in a way, immortalizing it.

Fahler first worked with lampworking glass while studying ceramics at the Kansas City Art Institute, which sparked an ongoing interest in the medium. Recently, he began incorporating it into what he calls “rebar drawings,” which form the foundation of much of his work. “I was curious about letting the unpredictability of light become a part of the ‘materials’ I work with,” the artist says.

Many of Fahler’s sculptures are framed or supported by heavy-duty metals like rusted steel, iron fences, and gates. Stained glass hovers a few inches from the wall, casting colorful shadows. For his most recent works, Fahler places barriers atop the glass to consider not only the viewer’s relationship to the image but also the implications of people being barred from freedoms and knowledge. “I draw from a lot of different sources—historical, mythological, and fantastical—all of which encompass my ‘heritage,'” the artist says.

In a piece titled after the poem “New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus, which is carved in bronze on the Statue of Liberty’s pedestal, Fahler uses a gate to frame a detail of Lady Liberty’s arm constructed of tiny glass squares soldered to the facets of a chain-link fence. Historically a potent symbol of welcome, amnesty, and inclusiveness, the statue in this context references how today, new immigrants’ access is more troubled and often blocked.

Serpents, dragons, eagles, and landscapes merge with realistic portraits and references to historical moments and national emblems, like Mexico’s crest featuring a golden eagle on a cactus with a snake in its talons. The image centers on the nation’s flag, representing the resilience, bravery, and spirit of the Mexican people. Echoing his representation of the Statue of Liberty, the icon is barricaded, merging with iron bars.

Fahler is currently working on a solo presentation with Sebastian Gladstone this autumn. He and his family just moved to Amsterdam, where he shares he’s beginning from a “zero-point/clean canvas” in a new studio, and he plans to explore ideas around the complexities of sovereignty, expatriation, and a quickly evolving global society.

“The world is changing so quickly that we cannot collectively understand, let alone keep up with it!” he says. “I’m excited to be working on all of that and look forward to the body of work that depicts it.”

Find more on Fahler’s website and Instagram.

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In a 1906 essay, psychiatrist Ernst Jentsch coined the term “uncanny,” or unheimlich, meaning “unhomely” or “not home-like” in German. He defined the psychological phenomenon as the experience of something new or unknown that might initially be interpreted negatively.

Austrian neurologist and founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud popularized the word with the publication of his book The Uncanny in 1919, which elaborated on the idea as not just the sensation of the unknown but also something capable of bringing out hidden or repressed elements, going so far as to describe the uncanny as frightening.

During the 20th century, the Surrealists often turned to the concept to build a sense of mystery or tension in their works. Meret Oppenheim, for instance, famously created a teacup lined with fur, simply titled “Object” (1936), widely regarded as an iconic example of the movement.

Oppenheim is one of more than two dozen artists whose work will appear in the National Museum of Women in the Arts’ forthcoming exhibition, Uncanny, featuring recent acquisitions and rarely shown pieces in NMWA’s collection, plus special loans.

More than 60 works by renowned figures of modern art history like Louise Bourgeois, Remedios Varo, and Leonora Carrington will be shown alongside the likes of contemporary artists like Shahzia Sikander, Laurie Simmons, and Gillian Wearing. The large-scale presentation is the first to approach the concept through a feminist lens and is organized around themes of safety and surreal imaginings.

The show also plumbs the phenomenon of the “uncanny valley,” a term coined by robotics engineer Masahiro Mori in 1970 to describe the apprehension or discomfort one feels when confronted with something that is almost human but not quite, like video game characters that appear realistic yet still somehow seem “off.”

In Laurie Simmons’ “The Music of Regret IV” (1994), a female ventriloquist dummy sits in the center of a circle of six male dummy dolls, whose gazes are trained on her as she looked out into the distance. Tapping into a medium that has been used in the horror genre to instill a sense of creepiness or dread, Simmons’ central character is dramatically spotlit, her smile belying the reality that she is unsettlingly hemmed in.

Along the theme of safety, or specifically unsafe spaces, Fabiola Jean-Louis’s elaborately staged photographs tell two stories at once. The artist portrays “seemingly innocuous portraits of close acquaintances wearing elaborate period costumes typical of upper-class European women, while disturbing images of racial and sexual violence are hidden within the background or details of a dress, reminding the viewer of the lineage of violence,” says an exhibition statement.

Many works in the show address physical trauma or the body’s relationship to the unknown. Frida Orupabo’s photographic collages, for example, portray Black figures that evoke colonial histories, critiquing historical violence and injustices through a process of fragmenting, distorting, and multiplying body parts.

Orupabo’s compositions echo the surrealist collaborative practice of cadavre exquis, or exquisite corpse, in which participants add to elements others have drawn without being able to see their work, producing intuitive and peculiar drawings.

“The enigmatic, darkly humorous and psychologically tense artworks in Uncanny give form to women artists’ powerful expressions of existential unease,” said NMWA Associate Curator Orin Zahra, who organized the exhibition. She continues:

Rather than comfort and soothe, these ghostly and fantastical figures haunt the unconscious. Instead of picturesque images, artists offer disquieting spaces that unsettle the viewer. In focusing on the ambiguity between reality and fiction, artists explore increasingly blurred lines between the artificial and eerily human.

Uncanny opens February 28 and continues through August 10 in Washington, D.C., highlighting painting, sculpture, photography, works on paper, and video made between 1954 and 2022. Learn more and plan your visit on the museum’s website.

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Verdant scenery inhabited by vibrant wildlife and graceful feminine figures center in the work of Rupy C. Tut, whose paintings (previously) draw upon her Sikh ancestry and experiences emigrating from India as a young girl. “As an environmentalist and Indian-American woman, she never takes place for granted,” says a statement from Jessica Silverman Gallery, which represents the artist.

Tut’s ethereal works tread the boundaries between abstraction, portraiture, pattern, and traditional Indian painting. Her compositions introduce narratives—often captivatingly mysterious—that highlight enigmatic mystical, elemental, and spiritual phenomena.

The artist’s subjects typically exist front-and-center, like in “A River of Dreams,” in which a figure sits in a stream and observes a lily while dark clouds move in above. Motifs of darkening skies and dramatic change continue in recent works like “Bursting with Clouds” and “The First Rain.”

Oscillating between idyllic paradises, anxieties around climate disasters, and gender constraints, Tut focuses on female figures, turning the tables on a genre that typically focuses on male achievements. “I question traditional roles and labels while preserving traditional practices,” she says.

Tut was a 2024 recipient of the Joan Mitchel Foundation Fellowship, and her work is on view in the group exhibition About Place at San Francisco’s de Young through the end of November. You can explore more on her website and Instagram.

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When Myrlande Constant (previously) was a teenager, she worked alongside her mother in a commercial wedding dress factory in Port-au-Prince. There, she learned the tambour embroidery technique, which utilizes a hook to create chain stitches with beads and sequins on fabric.

“By foregrounding her specialized skills honed in the fashion industry, Constant’s approach to drapo has broken gender barriers and elevated the overlooked creative labor of Haitian female factory workers to the realm of fine art,” says a statement from Fort Gansevoort, which will present the artist’s work next month in a solo exhibition titled The Spiritual World of Haiti.

Drapo, or drapo Vodou, typically describes a style of embroidered flag embellished with beads or sequins, but the term can also be applied to a wide range of art forms like painting, clothing, assemblages, and sculptures. Constant’s pieces, which she has been renowned for since the 1990s, highlight a variety of materials, colors, textures, and all-over compositions brimming with ritual activity and symbols.

Haitian Vodou, an African diasporic religion that developed between the 16th and 19th centuries, merged Western and Central African traditions with Roman Catholicism. Its divine creator, Bondye, is inaccessible to humans, so spirits known as lwa‘s serve as intermediaries that can be invoked during ceremonies by possessing individuals, enabling communication with Bondye and transmission of advice, admonishment, or healing.

“Though she considers her art-making to be rooted in spirituality, Constant does not create her works for the purpose of display in Vodou temples, preferring instead to exhibit them in museums and galleries internationally,” a statement says.

For Constant, art-making is a statement of resistance within the context of Haiti’s extreme political and economic instability. The nation’s current unrest was spurred by protests against high fuel prices in 2018 and a demand that then-president Jovenel Moïse resign. He refused to step down but was assassinated in 2021, further escalating tensions. A federation of gangs continues to clash with the government, spawning more protests, violence, and perpetuating an evolving humanitarian crisis.

“Marinette Bois Chèche” is the earliest work that will be on view in the exhibition and depicts the martyrdom of Vodou lwa Marinette. According to folklore, Marinette was burned alive for fighting against slavery and participating in a paradigm-shifting Bwa Kayiman ceremony in 1791, which spawned the 12-year Haitian Revolution.

The insurrection, an uprising of enslaved people against French colonial rule, is unique in history because it led to the founding of a state ruled by former captives and non-white people and free from slavery—although it still permitted forced labor. Constant’s title translates to something like “Marinette of the dry wood,” evoking the ceremony that typically takes place around a bonfire and calling upon a momentous period in Haiti’s history.

The artist’s drapo are densely beaded and often much larger than their traditional counterparts. The most recent work on view in the exhibition, “Devosyon Makaya” spans ten feet wide and took around three years to create. Constant describes her process as “painting with beads,” transforming fabric and findings into elaborate narratives evoking time-honored Haitian customs.

The Spiritual World of Haiti opens on February 27 and continues through April 26 in New York City.

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Nothing says true love like arguing about who left the cap off the toothpaste, right? From a darkly comedic perspective, Stephanie Shih explores the multiple meanings of “domestic bliss” in a social landscape fraught with consumerism and clashing politics.

It all started with the 1998 self-help book, Divorce for Dummies. The sardonic humor of a goofy cartoon character exclamatorily holding up a finger offering counsel to one’s broken marriage—for the totally reasonable price of $19.99—was a catalyst for Shih’s interest in the capitalist absurdity that came with the divorce boom of the 1980s and ’90s.

Shifting social and cultural factors, such as the introduction of no-fault divorce laws and emergent waves of feminism, drastically impacted the outlook on divorce in America. Rising individualism, disillusionment with the idea of a nuclear family, and the reclamation of feminine independence all played a part in annulment rates doubling for those aged over 35.

In Shih’s solo exhibition aptly titled Domestic Bliss, the Brooklyn-based artist spotlights what the gallery, Alexander Berggruen, describes as “artifacts of a single household.” The array of objects evoke the reality of a time when materialism, distorted expectations, and self-loathing created a perfect storm.

A Thigh Master one likely ordered from QVC in the deep hours of night sits alone on a pedestal, epitomizing the ways in which consumer culture preyed upon insecurities, only to sell women the illusion of control. Prisoner of Desire rests face-down on an ironing board to hold one’s place as escapism is interrupted by the mediocrity of chores. TV dinners stack atop a glowing microwave to signify power dynamics, a substantial portion of Hungry Man reserved for the father and the smallest box reserved for the mother.

Expanding upon her previous domestic sculptures, each ceramic object evokes a sense of realism, thanks to the artist’s thoroughness. As the exhibition text explains, Shih “scoured eBay listings for photo references and exact dimensions of discontinued packaging in order to faithfully sculpt each object in its era-appropriate likeness.” A range of materials and techniques are then applied to each form, such as hand-painted underglaze, dyed resin, and even electrical elements like lighting. Every step of the way, the artist skillfully instills the mundane with liveliness.

Domestic Bliss is on view at Alexander Berggruen in New York City through February 26. Find much more on Shih’s Instagram and website.

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On the sides of rusted barrels or crushed steel spheres, Lithuanian artist Severija Inčirauskaitė-Kriaunevičienė (previously) applies delicate reminders of resilience. Using cotton thread, the artist cross-stitches vibrant flowers and butterflies onto facets of corroded metal, merging materials that appear to have little in common.

Where metal is rough, strong, and utilitarian, embroidery is tender, soft, and decorative. Inčirauskaitė-Kriaunevičienė taps into these diametric characteristics in her continuing examination of war. A large metal ball titled “OFFSIDE,” for example, represents the world’s cumulative conflicts. “It is like a huge disaster with a small embroidered butterfly that is like a small, fragile sign of hope,” she says.

Lithuania is not far from Ukraine, where the impacts of the ongoing Russian assault reverberate across the region. “The war is very close to us,” the artist tells Colossal, “so we can’t relax and just think about life.” She emphasizes that her motifs symbolize Ukraine’s victory and the end of the suffering of the Ukrainian people.

Incorporating insects and blooms, steeped in symbolic references to compassion, generosity, and care, Inčirauskaitė-Kriaunevičienė suggests that despite humans’ destructive actions, hope perseveres. Find more on the artist’s Instagram.

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Prior to the 20th century, apartment buildings and row houses were often built with shared walls between adjoining properties. Intrigued by these aging structures, Vienna-based artist Asya Marakulina began cataloging examples she first noticed on walks around her former home in St. Petersburg, Russia.

“Since houses in the 19th century were built without gaps between them, when one house is torn down, the neighboring house often bears traces of the demolished one,” Marakulina tells Colossal. These remnants of decor, plumbing, and other signs of human habitation form the basis of her ongoing ceramic series, There Was a Home.

When Marakulina moved to Vienna, she noticed a similar phenomenon in the remains of older buildings that had been demolished there, too. Fragments of floor still clung to the walls and the outlines of painted or papered rooms were suddenly—somewhat uncomfortably—external. The ease of a warm interior and its associated domesticity was upended.

“What touches and affects me the most in images of ruined houses are the traces of wallpaper, tiles, and children’s rooms, which suddenly become visible to the entire street,” the artist says, sharing that the sight evokes a deep sadness. “These spaces were never meant to be seen in such a way.”

Marakulina likens houses to the bodies of living organisms, imbued with emotions, memories, and layered histories. The ceramic cross-sections take on a portrait-like quality, capturing straightforward views of multistory edifices that are simultaneously immediate and intimate. “Maybe that’s why these images captivate me so much because a part of someone’s inner, domestic life is suddenly turned inside-out and put on public display,” she says.

The houses in There Was a Home are typically drawn from real buildings, photographs of which she captures herself or finds on the internet. Marakulina also considers the impacts of war and is profoundly moved by the current conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, where thousands of homes have been destroyed and their inhabitants killed or displaced. The half-standing homes simultaneously represent lives lost and the hope of one day being able to rebuild.

Rather than straightforward copies of the buildings she encounters, Marakulina takes liberties with wall colors, sometimes adding graffiti or words she sees on the streets or derives from the news. She scores the clay to create the textures of tile and concrete or delineate lintels and former doorways. The resulting reliefs become collage-like, merging locations and motifs.

If you’re in Belgium, you can see the artist’s work in Ceramic Brussels, which opens today and continues through January 26. In London, Marakulina created a site-specific installation for a solo show at The Smallest Gallery in Soho, which continues through mid-February, and later that month, she will exhibit with Vienna Collectors Club. Find more on the artist’s website and Instagram.

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Like many sports, men have typically dominated the world of bodybuilding, but for a small group of women in India, lifting weights and chiseling their bodies subverts more than athletic competitions.

In an ongoing series of images titled Not What You Saw, photographer Keerthana Kunnath documents a burgeoning community of female bodybuilders in Kerala. Set against common backdrops like beaches, the outside of a traditional Indian home, and lush, green foliage, the collection highlights an alternative vision of beauty grounded in immense female power.

Since starting the series, Kunnath has met about a dozen women participating in the sport. Her first encounter, though, was with the popular athlete and trainer Arathy Krishna, who she came across while researching the Indian marital art known as Kalari. This led the photographer to a small group of women bodybuilders scattered throughout the country.

“My initial meeting was through social media and through some fitness coaches who train some of these girls,” Kunnath adds. “I later started going to the competitions to support (them) and also to meet more bodybuilders.”

In Not What You Saw, broad, athletic shoulders and thighs bulging with muscle are juxtaposed with more traditional garments and gauzy, feminine fabrics chosen in collaboration with stylist Elton John. Beauty ideals have often centered on slim bodies, light skin, and long hair in India, and as Kunnath explained to WePresent last year, challenging stereotypes and defying gendered expectations has wide-ranging implications for those pursuing the sport. She says:

Many of them come from families who cannot or do not support their interest in the sport due to societal constraints or financial worries. They have to regularly work around the complex physical and emotional aspect of building  and maintaining their physique, while fighting the deeply ingrained expectations of how a ‘woman’ should look and what they can pursue as a ‘respectable career.’

Posed flexing their biceps and accentuating their impeccably sculpted forms, the women exude not only strength and pride but also joy. Shining light on a wider range of experiences is a key element of Kunnath’s practice, which often hones in on under-represented communities and those defying norms, particularly throughout southern Asia.

Currently working between London and India, Kunnath will show her work next month at Fuji’s House of Photography in London and the Royal Photographic Society in Bristol. Follow her latest projects, including additions to Not What You Saw and a new series devoted to her grandmother, on Instagram.

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