Arts Design

SWEET FANTASY LANDSCAPES: PIP & POP

PIP & POP

Art is one of the sweetest gifts in life. It brings joy and color. It sparks flames. It gives rushes. It makes pulses quicken….. Much like sugar does.

Pip & Pop’s sugary landscape installations hype the sweet vibe. They are actually largely made of sugar and they look like candy-lands.

Pip & Pop is the nom de plume for artist Tanya Shultz. She creates color-saturated fairytale-inspired landscapes made of sugar and materials meant to look like sugar.

These immersive installations and artworks rock glitter, candy, plastic flowers, everyday craft materials and assorted flotsam and jetsam.

A mashup of childhood and child-like adult fantasies, Pip & Pop’s mini-worlds remind us that there’s beauty in artifice, junk food, and things we instinctively reject as not-so-good-for-us. I’m thinking about my brother the dentist shaking his head at the sugar thing.

Pip & Pop began as a collaboration with fellow artist Nicole Andrijevic in 2007. After four years Nicole left the partnership to pursue a different career. Shultz now works solo and with other friends and artists creating projects in many parts of the world.

Psychedelic fantasy landscape made from colorful neon sugars. Installation by Pip & Pop.

Shultz has exhibited her work in Australia, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong, Germany, Netherlands, Mexico, the UAE and the UK.

Check out Pip & Pop’s latest exhibition, “Sticky Business,” at Stedelijk Museum Scheidam, through February 2018.

Magical lands created from orange sugars surround a blue sugar lake. Installation created by Pip & Pop.

Is it our inner child that makes us love art made of sugar? Maybe a little. Is it because it is so clever? Sure. But these pieces grab our sweet hearts and tug our souls because they are bona fide masterpieces, regardless of the medium. The fact that they are made from sugar is icing on the cake!

Beautiful neon fantasy world made from colorful sugar. Art installation by Pip & Pop.

Pip & Pop create chaotic, glittery, color-bombed landscapes, murals, vignettes, and frocks. They are soaked in Japanese kawaii, the quality of “cuteness,” an aesthetic particularly popular in Harajuku, a city known for its kawaii fashion center. Their installations feature mountains of dyed sugar, lilliputian origami cranes, tiny plastic giraffes, and bright pink mushrooms covered in glitter. They create utopias, composed of bubblegum pinks, cotton candy pastels, and lush psychedelic hues.

Neon and pastels color this imaginative world created from colored sugars. Installation by Pip & Pop.

There’s the French mythological 'Land of Cockaigne,' a place where sugar rains from the sky and the streets are paved with pastries; or 'Big Rock Candy Mountain,' a hobo's idea of paradise; or Willy Wonka’s 'Chocolate Factory.'”

Beautiful trippy fantasy world made of neon and pastel sugars. Installation by Pip & Pop.

Pip & Pop on exhibition now through December 2017 at NN Contemporary Art as part of their New Archive Exhibition.

All colors of the rainbow are evident in this fantastical world created from powdered sugar. Installation by Pip & Pop.

And check out more beautiful things happening now in BN Mind/Body, Soul/Impact, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Arts/Design, and Place/Time, Daily Fix posts.

Neon sugar rivers and powdered sugar hills create this fantasy world. Installation by Pip & Pop.

Want more stories like this? Sign up for our weekly BN Newsletter, Like us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr. Join our BeautifulNow Community and connect with the most beautiful things happening in the world right now!

Fluorescent and pastel colors help to create this magical imaginary world. Installation by Pip & Pop.

Do you have amazing photos? Enter them in this week’s BN Photo Contest. We run new creative contest every week!

Neon pastel sugars create magical landscape. Installation created by Pip & Pop.

IMAGE CREDITS:

Image: “We Miss You Magic Land.” Installation by Pip & Pop. Courtesy of Pip & Pop.
Image: “With Different Stars in the Sky.” Installation by Pip & Pop. Courtesy of NN Contemporary Art.
Image: “We Miss You Magic Lands.” Installation by Pip & Pop. Courtesy of Pip & Pop.
Image: “With Different Stars in the Sky.” Installation by Pip & Pop. Courtesy of NN Contemporary Art.
Image: “Candy Lab.” Installation by Pip & Pop. Courtesy of Pip & Pop.
Image: “When Happiness Ruled.” Installation by Pip & Pop. Courtesy of Pip & Pop.
Image: “When Happiness Ruled.” Installation by Pip & Pop. Courtesy of Pip & Pop.
Image: “Candy Lab” Installation by Pip & Pop. Courtesy of Pip & Pop.
Image: “We Miss You Magic Land.” Installation by Pip & Pop. Courtesy of Pip & Pop.
Image: “We Miss You Magic Land.” Installation by Pip & Pop. Courtesy of Pip & Pop.