"Get a Load" by Esther Shimazu

To Chicago-based artist Patrick Fitzgerald, his miniature car sculptures are a means of traveling through time. Born from a fascination with the soap box derby cars of his youth, eac...

To Chicago-based artist Patrick Fitzgerald, his miniature car sculptures are a means of traveling through time. Born from a fascination with the soap box derby cars of his youth, eac...

Based in Chicago, IL, contemporary artist Michael Thompson creates unique kites, collages and mixed media works assembled from material fragments of past and present collected in his travels. In his ongoing series of memory jugs, Thompson adorns stoneware vessels with a kaleidoscope of ceramic shards, found objects, and pocket-sized trinkets he collected over the course of his life. Also known as forget-me-not jugs or spirit jars, memory jugs are African American folk art objects that honor a loved one who has recently passed. Small tokens and mementos of the deceased are gathered and affixed to the exterior of a jug or vase, an abundance of memories that celebrates a life lived to the fullest. Michael Thompson applies this tradition to his own practice, creating tactile assemblages of this and that. Formed in the manner of collage, each jug honors the lost memories of generations past and his own memories of personally discovering each item. With varied sources for materials including Kyoto, Turkey, and Mexico, a great number of the found shards are 18th and 19th century ceramics...

Intricate, ethereal and highly textured, the abstract compositions of Japanese mosaic artist Toyoharu Kii reflect a sophisticated approach to the technical art of mosaic making. Classically trained in Florence, Italy, Kii creates his modern mosaics using traditional techniques and materials, including hand-cut Italian marble and Venetian smalti glass. Eschewing the figural in favor of the abstract, his mosaics rely on contrasts of pattern and form to convey complex themes and achieve visual harmony. Toyoharu Kii’s latest body of work “Geophytes” continues themes of rebirth and renewal. A reference to plants that regrow from hidden elements beneath the earth’s surface, the series celebrates the resilience of the natural world. Each mosaic is imagined as a landscape that documents a history of environmental damage due to human activity, and the subsequent return of nature as a restorative force. Through the juxtaposition of patterns and the interplay of order and disorder, Kii creates man-made “images of destruction” and finds hope in the future by “reconstructing nature.” In this mosaic entitled "Ghost (Get Out...

Esther Shimazu's bald and chunky male sculpture. She uses hand-built techniques to construct clay figures using colored slips, oxides when firing, then hand sands them and rubs in pi...

Incredible piece by Esther Fuhrman (American, b. 1939). This beautiful abstract modern bronze sculpture of a stairway leading to a gold-tone element pie...

Emile-Louis Picault, a large French orientalist patinated bronze figure of Queen Esther, circa 1870. A beautiful quality and rare subject bronze figure...

ABOUT An early 20th c. painted chalkware figure attributed to artist Esther Hunt. Bears the same copyright stamp as other Ester Hunt works. Unsigned. ...