Milan-based Filipina designer Mirei Monticelli creates biomorphic lighting fixtures that toe the line between sculpture and utility. Undulating outward and glowing from within, the artist’s works feel as if they are alive, quietly dancing wherever they stand or hang.

These gestural, biodegradable structures are crafted with hand-woven Banaca fabric made from Abacá, a fiber that grows abundantly in Monticelli’s native Philippines. The artist’s studio works directly with a community of weavers in the Bicol province at the southeastern end of Luzon, sharing with Colossal, “We’ve developed the material together over time, so it’s not just sourcing, but a relationship.”

The laborious act of harvesting Abacá fiber has long been communal. From gathering the wild plant’s towering stalks and stripping them layer by layer to sun-drying bundles of knotted thread and hand-weaving the strands into functional textiles, the necessity of human connection has always been part of the process.

The term Banaca—coined by Monticelli—combines modern elements of design with a heritage technique that has been passed down for centuries. Monticelli’s contemporary subversion of a material so deeply engrained within Philippine culture further emphasizes the works’ metamorphic and dynamic presence. “Human rhythm is what gives the material its character, and it’s also why every piece feels alive when it’s lit,” says the artist.

Monticelli’s practice also incoporates techniques that echo garment construction and fashion. The artist shared that many of her methods are also learned from her mother, a fashion designer. Draping, volume-building, and creating shape are present in Monticelli’s lamps, underscoring a bodily essence within their surging forms.

Last month, the artist unveiled an installation titled “Pleasure Garden” at Milan Design Week, and often collaborates with interior designers, hospitality partners, and architectural studios to create immersive spaces. Find more from Monticelli on Instagram.

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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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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.

For years, members of this community have made us aware of how beneficial Colossal has been in their learning journeys. Educators of all ages have shared that they’ve introduced the website to their students, crafting complete lesson plans from our articles and glossary of art terms. I encountered Colossal for the first time in a classroom, and in another life where I taught elementary students art, it remained one of my most reliable tools.

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.

And as we celebrate teacher appreciation this month, we’d like to highlight our deeply discounted education membership, available to current students and educators (just shoot as a quick email and we’ll get you set up). Thank you for reading, sharing, and learning with us.

Gratefully,
Jackie Andres
Online editor, Colossal

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Building sites and agricultural areas are typically described by the utilitarian operations that shape them—rugged, harsh, and often back-breaking. They are spaces that resist softness, built quite literally around force and tension. Artist Pia Hinz flips this idea on its head as she explores the conceptual and material relationship between strength and vulnerability.

Living and working between Ardèche, Amsterdam, and Arles, France, Hinz has been working with stained glass for the past three years. She focuses much of her work on objects that one might find in environments of labor, such as construction or farming. Her sculptures take on an array of recognizable forms including hammers, screws, traffic cones, tractor doors, scythes, rope, and more.

By introducing glass, Hinz subverts the practical purpose of tools and machinery as each object emerges antithetical to its original form. “Here, fragility and invincibility intertwine,” says an exhibition statement from La Menuiserie 2, a residency the artist completed in 2024. “By replacing functional materials with fragile ones, the artist questions our relationship to objects, their use value, and their narrative potential.”

As light passes through the artist’s work, it spills across surrounding spaces and results in shifts of color. Pieces like “MON PRÉCIEUX” and “Néon sacré” are elegantly adorned with abstract, geometric patterns that are shaped by winding metal lines. For Hinz, working with the material is, as she describes, an “urge to retrace the relation between light and space.”

The artist is currently working on a permanent stained glass monument for a building in Paris. Find more on Instagram.

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“Wind carries away destinies,” reads the brief synopsis for a short film titled “Jour de Vent,” or “Windy Day.” The sweeping animation was created in 2024 by a team of six graduates—Martin Chailloux, Ai Kim Crespin, Élise Golfouse, Chloé Lab, Hugo Taillez, Camille Truding—from École des Nouvelle Images school in Avignon, France.

A cast of characters—including a businessman, a picnicking family, a young couple, a cyclist, an old man and his dog, and a guitarist—spend a seemingly average day at the park. When a powerful gust of wind blows everyone’s day out of proportion, themes of change, acceptance, and connection emerge.

Much like the film’s surrender to the flow of life, the team embraced natural evolvement through the production process itself. “Interestingly enough, the story kept changing until the last day,” the graduates share in an interview with Animation Magazine. “The final shot was decided only three days before the end.”

“Jour de Vent” has won a multitude of awards, including Jury’s Choice Award at the 2025 SIGGRAPH Festival and Best International Short Film at Quickdraw Animation Society, among many more. Watch it now on Vimeo.

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Galicia, Spain-based artist Abi Castillo continues to create iterative self-portraits through her evolving ensemble of ceramic personas. Her delicate yet emotive figures are an invitation to consider the inner self, transformation, and the beauty of the natural world.

Femininity, nature, and symbolism play a central role within Castillo’s sculptures, contrasting with the notion of concealment. “This ambivalence between mysticism and drama, between monstrosity and beauty, is all very present,” she explains in an artist statement.

Though each ceramic character is distinct, her body of work carries overarching formal motifs including colorful hairstyles and wide eyes with light blue irises. Organic elements—such as flowers, insects, coral, and marine foliage—wrap themselves around Castillo’s figures, evoking a sense of protection through delicate armor.

Last time we checked in with Castillo, she mentioned plans to move into a larger studio, where she works now. The artist shares that this opportunity has given her larger creative freedom, and she is looking forward to an exciting year including a group exhibition with Beautiful Bizarre Magazine opening next week at Outré Gallery in Melbourne. For updates and studio views, find Castillo on Instagram.

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Szilveszter Makó’s enigmatic photographs carry layers of mystery and introspection. Standing inside curious block-like backdrops and lain against two-dimensional fields of color and texture, his subjects seamlessly meld into stories in which every detail carries intention.

Taking inspiration from art history, the Milan-based artist references Surrealism and grotesque art through his use of chiaroscuro effects via light exploration and contrasting earth tones. Similar to 20th-century Surrealist paintings, Makó’s images delve into uncanny realms and evoke a dreamlike sense of unfettered imagination. It’s no surprise that the photographer was once a painter and has suggested that these impulses may be a subconscious homage to his earlier chapters.

Mystery presents itself in Makó’s photos through tactility that’s difficult to pinpoint. Subtle but moody elements—such as grain and halation surrounding moments of brightness—point to the possibility of filmic qualities achieved by chemical reaction, rather than digital manipulation. While the photographer doesn’t divulge his specific post-production techniques, he explains, “I would not call it a secret but more of an unorthodox process… those who understand the history of analog photography could probably recognize what I am doing.”

Makó’s strong sense of style can be attributed to his distinct mise en scène, consisting of handmade props made with recycled materials, carefully constructed theatrical environments, and bold yet often sculptural garments that add visual interest through elongated lines and exaggerated silhouettes. Often highlighting designer pieces by Schapiarelli, Maison Margiela, Prada, Bottega, and more, the artist has also teamed up with more commercial names, such as Zara, and most recently, Adidas.

“When we come into the studio, everything that my team and I have prepared, like the props, the costumes, and the designs, pile up in one room,” Makó shares in a conversation with Artribune. “I like to see it all collide. As what we imagine beforehand does not always want to come together in the way we planned.”

One of the most distinguishable motifs across the artist’s images is a box. This cubic element appears in many forms—a confined space that models find themselves in, the repeating shapes that make up checkered floors, house-inspired headpieces, or, more recently, its evolution into a two-dimensional compositional element in playful flat-lay photographs. “For me, the box is both a restriction and a liberation,” Makó notes. “It centralizes the host whilst simultaneously amplifying it, preventing energy from scattering across the frame.”

While the box’s formally geometric characteristics lend itself to an evolution of order, structure, and guidance, the photographer also enthusiastically welcomes spontaneous moments, explaining that “control makes images cold and calculated, leaving much without meaning. A shoot should breathe, it should evolve, it should shock even those who are making it.”

Although Makó regularly works with a slew of well-known celebrities—such as Elle Fanning, Bad Bunny, Michelle Yeoh, Willem Dafoe, Cate Blanchett, and more—he possesses a unique ability to transcend the veil of fame, artfully translating even the most recognizable faces into something entirely of his own. He shares, “I do not treat celebrities differently from anyone else. We enter the room as equals. The set is not a hierarchy, it is a space where we work together.”

See more from the photographer on Instagram, and find his images published in editions of Vogue, The Cut, Acne Paper, Vanity Fair, GQ, and more.

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Misato Sano’s studio is replete with piles of wooden offcuts, heavy lumber, woodworking equipment, and flowing natural light. The Miyagi-based artist has been sculpting charismatic dogs for several years, steadily adding more distinct characters to her growing pack.

Self-portraiture remains a consistent theme within Sano’s practice. Each dog evokes a different emotion mirroring the artist’s personality, ranging from shy and skittish to excited and silly. “Visualizing my inner self through expressions and gestures full of charm and humor has also become an opportunity to deepen my self-love,” she shares.

Sano’s distinctive woodcarving techniques are exemplary of the artist’s signature style. Dimpled surfaces, for instance, evoke different types of dog coats and allow for color variance to come through upon the finishing application of oil paint. Working with camphor wood, the sculptural exaggeration of physical features such as limbs, bulbous tufts of fur, and even nails add to the body of work’s playful appeal.

These rhythmic textures and amusing design choices have also lent themselves to explorations of embroidery and illustration. Meditative stitches and repetitive, gridded ink drawings are a continuation of the artist’s dialogue with herself.

Sano is gearing up for an exciting year. Later this month, her work will be on view in a duo exhibition at the Kan Hai Art Museum in Taiwan. In August, the artist’s work is traveling to the states for Nucleus Portland’s 10th anniversary show, before a third exhibition at Igoone Arai in her native Miyagi, Japan. Keep up with the artist’s tail-wagging adventures by following her on Instagram.

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 Misato Sano’s Charming Wooden Dogs Are Carved With Personality appeared first on Colossal.