THE INCREDIBLE ART OF WINGS

Wings are beautiful on so many levels. Today we explore new art works that feature wings, both as subject matter and as medium. They will astonish and amaze you.

1. KJELL BLOCH SANDVED

Norwegian nature photographer Kjell Bloch became obsessed with the patterns on butterfly and moth wings. He began to see shapes that began to look like letters of our alphabet. As he photographed them, he developed a collection that includes all 26 letters of the English alphabet.

 

2. ELIZABETH TURK

Sculptor Elizabeth Turk makes delicate wings out of heavy marble. They are larger-than-life, with carved feathers that evoke the concept of souls shedding their wings.

Her work speaks to the idea of the displacement of the soul, questioning of belief, and uncertainty about the future.

Elizabeth Turk is an award winning artist, with fellowships from the Smithsonian and the MacArthur Foundation. She has been honored with a Pilchuck residency in Seattle, Washington,and a Kyojima residency in Tokyo, Japan, among others.

Turk’s work is found in the collections of the Corcoran Gallery of Art and The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, among others.

 

3. DUKNO YOON

This is an engineering beauty, by Dukno Yoon, entitled "Kinetic Wings Yearn to Fly."

Yoon creates genius little kinetic sculptures, some of which are jewelry that you can wear and amuse yourself and others with.

The Korean-born artist blew us away with his Kinetic Wing series, in which the individual sculptures connect the kinetics of hand movements to flying wings. They beautifully simulate real bird wing movements.

The contrast between metal structural form and natural feather, together with the repetitive and whimsical movements of fragile wings, provokes the imagination and evolves the intimate relationship between the work and viewer/wearer.

“Although the recent series, segmented wings have been focused on the formal challenge to engineer an intricate movement that simulates bird wings, these works are intended to be a series of poems in which I develop my own formal language, interpret the nature of wings, create various structural forms with movements, and share the metaphor, imagination, humor, with viewer/wearer,” explains Yoon.

Yoon currently teaches metalsmithing and jewelry at Kansas State University.

 

4. JOYCE LIN

Joyce Line used popsicle sticks to create this flapping whimsical piece entitled Study in Bird Motion. Mylar “feathers” flutter as the hand crank gets cranking. Its movements resemble a bird gracefully taking flight.

Lin focuses her studies on furniture design and is enrolled in a dual-degree program at Brown University and Rhode Island School of Design.

 

5. ELLEN JEWETT

Canadian artist Ellen Jewett creates wing sculptures that are biological narratives and cultural statements.

With degrees in both Biological Anthropology and Art Critique from McMaster University, she fuses both disciplines together beautifully.

Her process begins with a handmade metal armature which is then covered with lightweight clay and sculpted. She paints the pieces with acrylic or oil pigments. And as she works, the winged fantasies unfurl.

 

6. BOB POTTS

Bob Potts creates kinetic “wing-beat” sculptures that take flight in spirit if not in body. While they don’t look like birds, per se, their movements are undeniably avian.

Potts creates his pieces in a one-man workshop housed in an 1850s barn in New York State. They are culminations of ideas about the natural world that have been swirling around in his 72-year old consciousness.

He works with pallets of gears, cranks, sliders, levers and chain links to render intricate, yet elegantly simple works that, like the beautiful wings he emulates, are all about movement.

 

7. FLOAT

These feather-weight planes can transport you well beyond what any commercial airliner can do. They gently lift you and your imagination into soars and dives, loops and pirouettes.

Float is a documentary, directed by Phil Kibbe, about model airplanes, powered only by rubber band tensions, and the hobbyists -- the people who passionately design, build, collect, and delight in them.

These ultra-light planes can stay aloft for a full half hour, just on their own abilities to play well with the air, a testament to the beauty of their wings. There are no controls.

As tech toys become more sophisticated and buzzworthy, this hobby is becoming a lost art.

Watch these beautiful wings in action in this mesmerizing video.

 

8. CELIA SMITH

UK artist Celia Smith’s wire sculptures of birds show off the lightness of wings.

She collects scrap wire of all sorts -- different colors, textures, gauges -- and works them in a painterly fashion. They have a loose, sketch like quality.

They are, essentially, three-dimensional drawings, with the wires representing a quality of line.

“Birds are my main inspiration,” explains Smith, “capturing their movement and character is my primary concern. I find that wire has a spontaneity that can give my sculptures a feeling of life and energy.”

 

9. XU BING

Just a few months ago, dinosaur-sized phoenixes rose up high, soaring beautifully below the ceiling in the grand nave of the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine  in New York City.

They were fanciful creations of Chinese sculptor Xu Bing. Though their bodies and wings appear light and delicate, they are made of shovels, hard hats, jackhammers, and other salvaged construction debris, including pliers, saws, screwdrivers, plastic accordion tubing and drills.

Together, the phoenixes weigh over 12 tons. They measure 90 and 100 feet long. They will be on view for about a year.

 

10. MELINDA LOOI

Open Wings is a new bird inspired collection by Malaysian fashion designer Melinda Looi. She created these incredible wings with the help of Belgian 3D printing company Materialise.

 

11. HASAN KALE

As if the wings of butterflies weren’t amazing enough, Turkish artist Hasan Kale embellishes them further as he paints the tiniest portraits of his native Istanbul. Kale opts for the smallest canvases.

Beyond butterfly and other insect wings, he creates the micro-miniature landscapes on the surfaces of everything from seeds to match heads, using the thinnest brushes, with the aid of a magnifying glass.

Read more about Beautiful Wings, as it relates to Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact including See the Invisible Beauty of Little Wings, These Wings Can Make Life More Beautiful, and 10 Divine Angel Food Cake Flights.

Enter your own images and ideas about Beautiful Wings in this week’s creative Photo Competition. Open for entries now until 11:59 p.m. PT on 06.15.14. If you are reading this after that date, check out the current BN Creative Competition, and enter!

PHOTO CREDITS:

1. Photo: by Kjell Bloch Sandved. Alphabet on Butterfly Wings.
2. Photo: Kjell Bloch Sandved. Alphabet on Butterfly Wings.
3. Photo: Courtesy of Elizabeth Turk. Wings.
4. Image: Courtesy of Elizabeth Turk. Wing Collage.  
5. Sculpture By Elizabeth Turk. Abandoned Wings.
6. GIF: Courtesy of Dukno Yoon. “Suspended Wings.”
7. GIF: Courtesy of Dukno Yoon. “Suspended Wings.”
8. GIF: Courtesy of Joyce Lin. “Study in Bird Motion.”
9. Photo: Courtesy of Joyce Lin. “Study in Bird Motion.”
10. Photo: Courtesy of Ellen Jewett. “Ethereal Bird.”
11. Photo: Courtesy of Mechanical Arts Devices Gallery. “Denizen of the Deep.” (2014)
12. Photo: Courtesy of Float Pictures. Still from “Float.”
13. Photo: Courtesy of Float Pictures. Still from “Float.”
14. Photo: Courtesy of Celia Smith. Long Tailed Tits.
15. Photo: Courtesy of Celia Smith. Robin.
16. Photo: by Marialena Carr. Xu Bing’s Phoenix.
17. Photo: Courtesy of Xu Bing. Phoenix at Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine.
18. Photo: by Peter Greenburg. Xu Bing’s Phoenix.
19. Photo: Courtesy of Melinda Looi. “Open Wings.”
20. Photo: by Hasan Kale. Painting of Istanbul on Butterfly’s wings.
21. Photo: by Hasan Kale. Painting of Istanbul on a Beetle’s Wings.