Process drives Nathan Cordero’s artwork. Found objects are morphed into complex and striking wood mosaics; words and images are painted, cut, carved and reassembled into stunning artworks. The interplay between large and small scale keeps you looking and enjoying each fresh piece.

SPONSOR

Biomimetic fashion apparel from discarded pieces of plywood, laser-cut with precision and stitched onto unbleached organic cotton. Who would have thought?

Earlier this year I began a blog as a day to day document of my time designing and working with wood. The photographs that I use for the blog are all recurring subjects: wood, studio, light.

But for me, it never gets boring. I keep a camera with me in the studio, and when I see something beautiful, when the light strikes the tools or the wood just right, I try to capture it. I believe people are attracted to the site because it is a glimpse into a vanishing art, or they enjoy the simplicity of it all. For me, the blog is a document of progress and the beauty of everyday life.

At first glance, A.J. Fosik’s animal head sculptures look as if they were made of simple paper, when in actuality each is made of wood, carved and colored in vibrant shades of green, blue, red and pinks. Each has its own energy, power and intricacies that envelope and hypnotize the viewer.

The work of Brooklyn artist Cosme Herrera is beautiful, subtle and imbued with a deep sense of meaning. ‘As I constantly question man-made constructs, I search for a universal language’, he says. ‘Through this body of work, I seek to define my own logos. Logos are a system of symbols designed for easy and definite recognition. Using a system of logos, I explore my relationship with wood through metaphors and parables. My use of wood is observant of the information trees contain and communicate. Their rings, like an analogical language, tell the story of the tree’s experience through starvation, growth, long winters and wet springs’. ‘Written language, in contrast to wood grain, is entirely artificial, the relationships that words have to their meanings are assigned arbitrarily. For humans, however, our elected language is very often the primary link between us, allowing for an interconnectedness of our otherwise discrete beings (trees). Exploring various natural, synthetic and man-made woods through my process, I create these works while investigating my own personal and ritualistic relationship with the material. These allegorical images illustrate a symbiotic world where man and tree coexist in peace or chaos with their environment. My narrative explores life and death through the various relationships that men and trees share ecologically, industrially, and spiritually’.

SPONSOR

Arkansas raised, Oakland based artist Tiffany Bozic ‘sandpapers the surface of her work, which warms the paint with a patina glow and allows some of the wood’s grain to show through’. Of her work she says: ‘I have always been drawn towards finding some kind of common thread or language that binds us to and separates us from nature and each other’.