Raising Dragons

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After more than two decades as a commercial textile designer, often working digitally, Amy Gross was drawn to making something that felt more immediate and tactile. “I started making beaded jewelry, something I could hold and feel,” she tells Colossal.

The beading techniques gradually merged with canvases, which over time became more three-dimensional. They were “less about adornment and more about personal stories I felt I needed to tell,” she says. These eventually became sculptural objects, representative of the natural world that has long been a source of wonder and curiosity for the artist.

Gross’ imaginative compositions of flora, fungi, and sometimes even fauna tap into her fascination with scale. In her practice, it’s “not about size, it’s about what is most important to you,” she says. “It’s how we see and think and remember.” Beads, thread, yarn, and paper transform into otherworldly, miniature biomes.

The artist focuses on mushrooms, roots, leaves, blossoms, and tiny critters as a meditation on our planet’s smallest denizens. She also incorporates motifs evocative of elements we typically can’t comprehend with the naked eye, such as spores, pollen, viruses, molecules, and cells. “To my mind’s eye, they are of equal importance,” she says. “The health of the world we see is deeply dependent on the health of the tiniest elements.”

Gross’ work is currently on view in two shows at Momentum Gallery in Asheville, which also represents the artist. In late 2027, her work will be included in a group exhibition at the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, Massachusetts, and one of her sculptures will be featured in a forthcoming book published by Phaidon about fungi. See more of the artist’s work on Instagram.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article Whimsical Beaded Sculptures by Amy Gross Meditate on Our Planet’s Tiniest Life Forms appeared first on Colossal.

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