Lauren Fensterstock’s Cosmic Mosaics Map Out the Unknown in Crystal and Gems — Colossal




Artwork

#gem stones
#set up
#Lauren Fensterstock
#mosaics
#sculpture
#stars

April 29, 2024

Grace Ebert

“Past Thoughts” (2023), classic crystal, glass, quartz, obsidian, tourmaline, and combined media, 27 x 26 x 13 inches. Picture by Luc Demers. All photographs © Lauren Fensterstock, shared with permission

When a large star dies, it collapses with an infinite explosion that produces a supernova. In some instances, the stays develop into a black gap, the enigmatic phenomenon that traps all the pieces it comes into contact with—even mild itself.

The life cycle of stars informs the newest works by artist Lauren Fensterstock, who applies the ideas of such stellar transformations to human interplay and connection. From her studio in Portland, Maine, she creates dense mosaics of fragmented crystals and stones together with quartz, obsidian, and tourmaline that glimmer when hit by mild and kind shadowy areas of intrigue when not.

Cloaking sculptures and large-scale installations, Fensterstock’s dazzling compositions evoke pure kinds like flowers, stars, and clouds and communicate to cosmic and terrestrial entanglement. “I’ve to confess that I agonize over the location of each single (piece),” the artist shares. “There are days the place it flows collectively like a magical puzzle and different days the place I place, rip out, and redo a sq. inch of floor time and again for hours. Even amidst an enormous mass of fabric, each second has to have that feeling of easy perfection.”

 

a massive black orb with spikes and glimmering crystals hangs from the ceiling over a bed of black fringe

“The totality of time lusters the nightfall” (2020), combined media, set up at The Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Artwork Museum. Picture by Ron Blunt

The gems are typically firmly embedded throughout the floor and at others, seem to blow up outward in an lively eruption. Celestial implosions are apt metaphors for transformation, the artist says, and “pairs of stars communicate to the complexities of private connections… Within the latest work—which explores huge sky maps stuffed with a number of constellations—I try to maneuver past a single star or an remoted self to indicate the entanglement of the cosmic entire.”

Whereas stunning on their very own, the valuable supplies discover broader themes in mixture.  Simply as astrology makes use of constellations and cosmic machinations to supply perception and that means into the unknown, Fensterstock’s jeweled sculptures chart relationships between the person and the universe to attract nearer to the divine.

The artist is at the moment working towards a solo present opening this fall at Claire Oliver Gallery in Harlem. Impressed by her each day meditation observe, she’ll current elaborately mapped creations of lotuses, black holes, fallen stars, and a bow and arrow that seem as choices to the universe. Along with that exhibition, the artist is displaying in Might on the Shelburne Museum and can attend a residency in Italy this September, to work on a ebook about entanglement and artist muses. Discover extra about these initiatives and her multi-faceted observe on her web site and Instagram.

 

a detail image of mosaic crystals with a cluster of a spiky crystals

Element of “Dwelling” (2023), classic crystal, glass, quartz, and combined media, 18 x 16 x 13 inches. Picture by Luc Demers

left: a black floral sculpture covered in mosaic tiles and glimmering crystals. right: right: a silver floral sculpture covered in mosaic tiles and glimmering crystals.

Left: “The Undiluted” (2023), classic crystal, glass, quartz, obsidian, tourmaline, and combined media. Picture by Luc Demers. Proper: “The Unharmed” (2023), classic crystal, glass, quartz, and combined media, 22 x 27 x 14 inches. Picture by Luc Demers

string of black beads dangle from black cloud like sculptures covered in beads, mosaic, and crystals

“The totality of time lusters the nightfall” (2020), combined media, set up at The Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Artwork Museum. Picture by Ron Blunt

left: a floral sculpture with numerous leaves all covered in glimerring stones and crystals. right: a floral wall sculpture with black glimmering stones in the center and silver petals

Left: “The Many” (2023), classic crystal, glass, quartz, and combined media, 38 x 38 x 10 inches. Picture courtesy of Claire Oliver Gallery. Proper: “Coronary heart of Negation” (2022), classic crystal, glass, quartz, and combined media, 54 × 54 × 14 inches

a half-orb sculpture with a glimmering black inside and sharp clear crystals around the outside

“Eclipse” (2022), classic crystal, glass, quartz, obsidian, tourmaline, and combined media. Picture by Luc Demers

three black cabinets on a wall with black objects and large growths overwhelming the shelves

“The Order of Issues” (2016), shells and combined media

#gem stones
#set up
#Lauren Fensterstock
#mosaics
#sculpture
#stars

 

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