From larger-than-life double-bobble hair bands to a wall of elaborate braids, Tiff Massey spotlights distinctive Detroit style. Trained as a metalsmith, the artist employs the power of material and scale to highlight the city’s neighborhoods and Black identity and culture.
7 Mile + Livernois, Massey’s solo exhibition at the Detroit Institute of Arts, takes inspiration from the crossroads at the heart of the city’s Black business and fashion district, where the artist grew up. The area will soon be home to a new arts and community space that Massey is spearheading in an effort to guide and celebrate local kinship.
“Everyday Arsenal” (2018)
Personal adornment is central to the artist’s expression, which she channels through jewelry, sculptures, and mixed-media assemblages to underscore Black style with a focus on her hometown. “Whatupdoe” and “Everyday Arsenal,” for example, respectively transform a contemporary chain necklace and silver rings into monumental installations, creating terrains of portal-like tunnels and interlocked angles.
The “ancestral flyness” of the artist’s parents and previous generations also provides a limitless well of inspiration. “How they adorned themselves has definitely been influential not only to how I adorn myself but also to the ideas that I have within the works,” Massey says in an interview for the DIA exhibition catalogue. “Detroiters, when we step outside, we step outside. We want people to see it. We want people to see us. And that has left a tremendous impression on me.”
7 Mile + Livernois continues through May 11. Find more on the artist’s website and Instagram.
“Baby Bling” (2023)“Whatupdoe” (2024)Detail of “I’ve Got Bundles and I Got Flewed Out (Green)”
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Machine learning helped show how harnessing the weird effects of Einstein’s special relativity could enable a new kind of quantum computer – and it could also lead to new insights into the quantum realm
When touched, the hypersensitive makahiya plant folds its minuscule leaflets inward, protecting itself from any potential threat.
Florence Solis draws on this defensive response in an ethereal collection of portraits. Beginning with digital collages that meld figures and delicate, organic ornaments, the Filipino-Canadian artist translates the imagined forms to the canvas. Shrouded in dainty, beaded veils or entwined with botanicals, each protagonist appears bound and concealed, their bodies and faces obscured by hair or grass.
“Sirena” (2025), acrylic on canvas, 30 x 24 inches
As Solis sees it, the figures may be restricted, but they’re also able to find strength and transformation. “Filipino women, much like the makahiya, have been taught to yield, to soften, to take up less space,” she says. “And yet, beneath this quietness lies an undeniable force—one that persists, adapts, and reclaims space in its own way.”
Working in saturated, often single-color palettes, Solis renders figures who appear to harness magical powers. She references Filipino folklore and the belief in the power of the everyday to lead to the divine, painting women rooted in tradition and myth, yet determined to see their transformation through.
The vivid portraits shown here will be on view at EXPO CHICAGO this week with The Mission Projects. Find more from Solis on Instagram.
“Sa Lupa (On Ground)” (2025), acrylic on canvas, 30 x 24 inches“Totem” (2025), acrylic on canvas, 30 x 24 inches“Makahiya VIII” (2025), acrylic on canvas, 20 x 16 inches“Makahiya VII” (2025), acrylic on canvas, 48 x 36 inches“Alay (Offering)” (2025), acrylic on canvas, 48 x 36 inches
“My favorite thing about kapa is that it is simultaneously ancestral, ancient, and contemporary,” says Lehuauakea (Kanaka Maoli), who recently received the Walker Youngbird Foundation grant for emerging Native American artists. Kapa, the Indigenous Hawaiian practice of clothmaking, uses the inner bark of the wauke, or paper mulberry tree, to create garments and textiles. For Lehuauakea, the technique forms the foundation of a practice rooted in the artist’s Hawaiian lineage and material traditions.
Softening the fibers enough to create cloth requires a labor-intensive method of soaking pieces of bark. Through an arduous process of beating and stretching with tools like theiʻe kuku, a thin, pliable fabric emerges. “It is a very malleable material that reflects the current state of the natural environment, and the surrounding community and personal hand of the maker,” Lehuauakea tells Colossal. “It requires a level of patience and perseverance while also paying close attention to the nature of the bark and pigments you are working with.”
“Still Finding My Way Back Home” (2025), kapa (barkcloth), reclaimed Japanese fabrics, indigo and madder root dyes, ceramic beads, bells, earth pigments, hand-embroidery, and metal leaf, approx. 18 x 9 feet
Kapa is derived from ancient Polynesian practices—it’s called tapa in other parts of the Pacific—and Hawaiians elaborated on the custom by incorporating watermarks, natural pigments, and fermentation.
Traditionally, kapa possessed both practical and spiritual qualities, as it was used for everyday apparel and bedding but also served as a carrier of mana, or healing life force. When the U.S. controversially annexed the territory and the import of cotton amped up in the late 19th century, the practice all but died out.
Lehuauakea’s interest in kapa emerged when their family relocated to Oregon when they were young. Over time, the artist felt increasingly disconnected from their home and sought a way to conjure a link to their Hawaiian ancestry.
“I remembered learning about kapa as a child and how we’d use patterns to tell stories, so in my junior year of college I taught myself how to carve ʻohe kāpala, or traditional carved bamboo printing tools used for decorating finished kapa,” the artist says. Then it was onto learning how to make the barkcloth itself, with the help of artisan and mentor Wesley Sen, spurring Lehuauakea’s passion for the medium.
“Puka Komo ʻEkahi: Portal to Grant Permission” (2024), earth pigments and metal leaf on kapa (barkcloth), 28 x 28 inches
Fascinated by the potential to not only continue a time-honored Kanaka Maoli art form but also to experiment and push the boundaries of the material, Lehuauakea makes large-scale installations, hand-stitched garments, mixed-media suspended works, and hand-painted two-dimensional compositions— “in other words, forms that you wouldn’t see in ancestral samples of pre-contact Hawaiian kapa,” they say. The artist continues:
As an Indigenous cultural practitioner and artist, I believe it is important to have a solid foundation in the traditional knowledge of the practice before attempting to expand on it or experiment with more contemporary expressions of the medium because I am not singular in this work; I am simply building on a tradition that was passed down through many generations before me, and I can only hope that I am able to inspire future generations to continue it.
Lehuauakea is currently working toward solo exhibitions at the Center for Contemporary Art Santa Fe and Nunu Fine Art in New York City, exploring ideas around Native Hawaiian cosmology, celestial cycles, and the relationship between Native Hawaiian language and pattern. Find more on the artist’s website.
“Kūmauna” (2024), earth pigments hand-painted on kapa (barkcloth), 26 x 48 inchesDetail of “Still Finding My Way Back Home”“I Walk With My Ancestors (1 of 2)” (2024), earth pigment and wildfire charcoal hand-painted on kapa (barkcloth), 29 x 61.5 inches“Night Eyes” (2024), earth pigments and wildfire charcoal hand-painted on kapa (barkcloth), 78 x 18.5 inches“Mele o Nā Kaukani Wai (Song of a Thousand Waters)” (2018), mixed mulberry papers, handmade plant dyes and mineral pigments, gouache, ceramic beads, and thread, approx. 11 x 8 feetDetail of “Mele o Nā Kaukani Wai (Song of a Thousand Waters)”
Researchers at the Large Hadron Collider found evidence of an unprecedentedly heavy and exotic form of antimatter in the aftermath of a collision between extremely fast lead ions
The US and other nations are eager to exploit the Arctic’s mineral wealth, but despite the thawing of ice and permafrost, accessing buried treasure in the region remains extremely challenging
A daily pill developed by the US pharmaceutical company Lilly may become a convenient alternative to injectable drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. In phase III trials it significantly lowered blood sugar and body weight in people with type 2 diabetes
This week marks the beginning of Chicago’s art world Olympics as the largest fair returns to Navy Pier. From April 24 to 27, EXPO CHICAGO will host hundreds of galleries, site-specific projects, talks, and multi-disciplinary programming both downtown and across the city.
To help you navigate, we’re sharing the artworks we’re most looking forward to seeing. And, if you haven’t gotten your tickets yet, use the code COLOSSAL25 for $5 off.
The Chicago-based, Kenyan artist will present a collection of vivid new paintings that speak to the immense amount of information generated through her intensive research process. Surrounded by books, plants, and brightly patterned East African Kanga fabrics, Mathenge’s figures lounge among objects that transcend colonial narratives.
Ilhwa Kim, “Calculative Flight” (2024), hand-dyed hanji paper, 132 x 164 x 13 centimeters
We’ve long been enamored by Kim’s roving, rolled-paper compositions that delineate dense pathways through broader expanses. Her dynamic works will be on view alongside Cheung’s decadent paintings and Lu’s stainless steel splashes.
Florence Solis, “Makahiya VI” (2025), acrylic on canvas, 48 x 36 inches
Beginning with digital collage before moving to acrylic and canvas, Solis renders ethereal portraits of women infused with Filipino folklore. Delicate leaves and flowers entwine with coiled hair, while veils shroud the figures in luminous coverings, binding each with a protective, yet restrictive layer.
Suntai Yoo, “The Words” (2024), acrylic on canvas, 91 x 117 centimeters
Fragmented, surrealist landscapes figure prominently in Yoo’s paintings, which frequently pair common objects like books, bicycles, and apples with Korean letters. The artist is particularly interested in metaphor and how distinct items interact to create meaning.
Desmond Beach, “The Guardian of the Small & Sacred” (2025), digital painting, woven Jacquard loom, hand and machine sewn pieceworked fabric, 47″x 47 inches
Mixing digital painting with patchwork quilts, Beach creates bold, forward-looking portraits. The Baltimore-born artist invokes the ways that trauma can be harnessed for resistance and collective solidarity.
Jimmy Beauquesne, “Phase 3. Knight of infinite resignation” (2023-2024), colored pencils on paper, hand-cut metallic frame, 62 x 41 x 2 centimeters
Nested inside hand-cut metallic frames, Beauquesne’s colored-pencil works imagine a dreamy, apocalyptic world that drips with fantastic details. The nine pieces form a narrative of humanity’s transformation sparked by phantasmagorical change.
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The Tara Polar Station, a $23 million research vessel with a crew of 12, will drift across the Arctic ice to enable better monitoring of a rapidly changing environment
Murals by Agostino Iacurci bring drab buildings to life in bold jewel tones, playful patterns, color blocks, and symmetry. Whether painting directly onto bricks and plaster or designing immense fabric sheaths to cover construction scaffolding, the artist’s vibrant compositions enliven street corners and urban thoroughfares.
Iacurci often emphasizes geometric patterns, flora, classical vases, and niches that hold symbolic objects or figures. You might enjoy checking out Gingko Press’s Mural Masters, a survey of the next generation of street artists, and see more on Iacurci’s website and Instagram.
“Landscape n.1” (2021), wall painting, 27.7 x 7.1 meters. Las Vegas, Nevada. Commissioned by Life is Beautiful“Disegno d’esame” (2021), enamel on wall, dimensions variable. Pascucci Elementary School, Santarcangelo di Romagna. Photo by Francesco Marini“Grüne Oase” (2024). Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Photo by Ivan Murzin“COINCIDENCES.” Ensorinstituut, Oostende, Belgium. Produced by The Crystal ShipDetail of “COINCIDENCES”“Landscape n.2” (2021), print on PVC scaffold sheet, 17 x 14 meters. Pastificio Cerere, Rome. Photo by Carlo Romano“Landscape n.3” (2021). Pinacoteca Civica, Foggia. Photo by Domenico d’Alessandro“L’antiporta” (2021), paint on wall, dimensions variable. Biblioteca Ugo Tognazzi, Pomezia. Curated by Marcello Smarrelli and Pastificio Cerere for Sol Indiges. Photo by Lorenzo PalmieriDetail of “L’antiporta”Detail of “Cardi (1571-2021).” Photo by Domenico d’AlessandroDetail of “Disegno d’esame.” Photo by Domenico d’Alessandro
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