Self-taught artist Tiffany Bozic explores a wide range of natural themes in her tightly rendered depictions of wildlife. Drawing inspiration from her “extensive travels to wild places” and exposure to various research specimens at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, the artist works most frequently with multiple layers of watered down acrylic paint on panels of maple wood that lends a distinctly natural and often realistic level of detail to each of her paintings. Bozic is currently working on a new body of work for a solo show at FFDG this coming October, but for now you can see more work in her portfolio (and archive) on her website.

If you enjoyed learning about Soo Sunny Park’s Unwoven Light installation at Rice Gallery earlier this month, you’ll like this new documentary short by filmmaking duo Angela and Mark Walley of Walley Films. The film covers the installation period and opening of Park’s chain-link fence installation and you learn quite a bit more about the artist’s process and intent behind her imaginative, surreal artwork. If you’re unable to make it to Houston to see this in person, this is the next best thing.

Photo by Thomas Salva courtesy Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain.

Photo by Thomas Salva courtesy Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain.

Photo by Thomas Salva courtesy Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain.

Photo by Thomas Salva courtesy Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain.

Photo by Thomas Salva courtesy Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain.

Hyperrealist sculptor Ron Mueck works in the realm of the ultra-real where he spends hundreds of hours perfecting the shape of the human form, the appropriate color of skin, and the most realistic hair texture. All of his efforts culminate in incredibly lifelike figurative sculptures with one small (or large) exception: the artworks are often gigantic or miniaturized, resulting in an uncomfortable “does not compute” moment when trying to comprehend exactly what you’re looking at. Each sculpted person is as bizarre as it is amazing, in part because of the raw intimacy portrayed in their faces, as if we are somehow witnessing the documentation of a private moment.

Ron Mueck’s Studio, January 2013. Photo by Gautier Deblonde.

Photo by Thomas Salva courtesy Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain.

Photo by Thomas Salva courtesy Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain.

Photo by Thomas Salva courtesy Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain.

Photo by Thomas Salva courtesy Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain.

Like several other hyperrealist sculptors Mueck began his sculpting career in entertainment where he started work as a puppeteer, creating models and puppets for children’s movies and TV shows. Most notably he worked on Jim Henson’s film Labyrinth and even provided the voice for the character Ludo. In 1996 he made the switch to fine art and quickly rose to prominence with exhibitions at the Royal Academy and the National Gallery in London.

Last month Mueck unveiled three new works at the Fondation Cartier in Paris as part of an exhibition that runs through September 29th, including the extraordinary Couple Under an Umbrella shown above. You can watch the video to get a little more perspective on just how large this artwork really is. All images above courtesy Fondation Cartier. (via my amp goes to 11)

Optical Ripple is the latest print from artist and designer Simon C. Page who often explores complex geometric patterns as well as the interplay of color. This latest piece involves a kaleidoscopic array of colors and concentric circles that borders on the edge of a blurry optical illusion. If you liked this, also check out his wonderful Color Wheel. (via the fox is black)

Jerry Saltz, one of the 2012 Juried Grand Prize juror said of ArtPrize, “It is pretty damn impressive… An amazing inversion of the top-down pedigreed model we use. It takes all kinds.”

To open things up even further, ArtPrize blends their epic public vote with juried prizes to explore the tension that exists between popular and professional opinion. The 2013 panel of jurors consists of eight people who represent the voice of the professional art world and who will be the counterbalance to the public vote. Together, this panel will distribute the $200,000: five totaling $20,000 and one Juried Grand Prize totaling $100,000.

ArtPrize’s open call for artists is happening right now. Register online at www.artprize.org.

Last year I featured a number of amazing gifs from Istanbul-based artist Erdal Inci (previously) who clones sections of video to create hypnotic animated loops. His work has since popped up all over the web and will soon find its way into a gallery space. Above are some of his latest clips depicting numerous copies of Inci himself parading through the frame like a cloned robot army, though he also flashlights to create even more complex effects. If you happen to be in Italy you can catch his work firsthand at Action Gallery in Milano on May 25 and in Naples on May 30.

Ballroom Luminoso is a series of six chandeliers designed by artists Joe O’Connell and Blessing Hancock currently installed in San Antonio, Texas. Made from custom made structural steel, custom LEDs and recycled bicycle parts, the lights project colorful silhouettes of sprockets and other pieces onto the otherwise drab cement underpass. From the artist’s statement about the project:

Ballroom Luminoso references the area’s past, present, and future in the design of its intricately detailed medallions. The images in the medallions draw on the community’s agricultural history, strong Hispanic heritage, and burgeoning environmental movement. The medallions are a play on the iconography of La Loteria, which has become a touchstone of Hispanic culture. Utilizing traditional tropes like La Escalera (the Ladder), La Rosa (the Rose), and La Sandía (the Watermelon), the piece alludes to the neighborhood’s farming roots and horticultural achievements. Each character playfully rides a bike acting as a metaphor for the neighborhood’s environmental progress, its concurrent eco-restoration projects, and its developing cycling culture.

If you liked this project you might also enjoy Carolina Fontoura Alzaga’s bike chain chandeliers. Images above courtesy photographer Fred Gonzales. (via lustik)

Swing is a 2007 kinetic sculpture by Luxembourg musician, artist and photographer Su-Mei Tse. If you’re like me you can’t wait to jump on for a ride, however it would all be over before it started as the entire piece is essentially a rigid light made of white neon tubes and controlled by a motor embedded in the ceiling. Watch the video above to see it installed at Peter Blum gallery back in 2009 along with her neon bird cage. (via 2headedsnake, mithril, yiping lim)

Something’s up in Provo, Utah and it weighs around seven million pounds. It’s the 112-year-old exterior of the Provo Tabernacle that was severely damaged in a 2010 fire but has since been saved by the LDS church so it can be converted into a temple. Engineers first gutted the damaged interior and then supported the exterior walls with special scaffolding as they dug down to create space for a two story basement, so in actuality the building hasn’t even moved. The entire structure is now on stilts some 40 feet in the air and from some angles appears to be floating above ground, such as in the first photograph above provided by Brian Hansen. Additional photos courtesy the LDS Newsroom.

As part of her Mobile Mirrors exhibition at Christian Larsen gallery in Stockholm, artist Lilibeth Cuenca Rasmussen created a series of four reflective mannequins clad in shards of mirrors. Light was projected onto each sculpture creating a twinkling halo effect not unlike a disco ball, as a person wearing a similarly reflective body suit moved through the space. The exhibition was intended as commentary on consumerism; just as we project ourselves onto mannequins, Rasmussen’s is attempting to use the same object to reflect back on ourselves. Via Christian Larsen Gallery:

The mirror surfaces of the mannequins turn our gaze back onto ourselves, forcing us to become aware of our own bodies and consumption habits. This way revealed, we can see ourselves as part of a much larger system, as complex and chaotic as ever the sculptures’ reflections on the walls.

You can see many more images from the exhibition over on Facebook. (via ex-chamber)