Sculpture Archives – Page 34 of 35

Greg Brotherton: Sculpture

September 9, 2009 By Wendy Campbell

Today’s featured artist is metal /kinetic sculptor Greg Brotherton. Born in 1968 in Aims, Iowa, Brotherton spent most of his youth in Utah and Colorado. After graduating in 1987 with a degree in graphic design from the Academy of Art in Colorado, Brotherton moved to California where he worked as a commercial artist for the next twenty years.

Brotherton has a compulsive and consuming drive to build things: “I strive to create heroic icons from our ever evolving cultural saga. Icons that juxtapose mythology with pop culture and invest ordinary objects with fantastic, sometimes diabolical, function.”

Working with hammer-formed steel and re-purposed objects, Brotherton’s pieces “originate from a disordered mechanical history, often revealed through a dystopian view of pop culture.”

Brotherton’s scultpures have been exhibited throughout the US as well as receiving international recognition. In 2007, he was invited to serve as the featured artist at the Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) Conference in Monterey, California.

Brotherton currently lives with his wife Amy and son Jack in La Jolla, California and owns the Device Gallery in San Diego, California. For more information, visit Greg’s website at Brotron.com.

Ellen June Jewett: Sculpture

September 1, 2009 By Wendy Campbell

This week’s Deviant is sculptor Ellen June Jewett. Born in Markham, Ontario Canada, Jewett’s interest in shaping three dimensional forms began at a young age.

A self-taught sculptor, Jewett has a degree in Biological Anthropology and Art Critique from McMaster University in Ontario.

Sculpting with only her hands, Ellen’s inspiration comes from her relationships with plants and animals and a fascination with the images of science and discovery. Working with polymer clay, home-made foam clay, and other mediums, Jewett creates a world of fantastical dragons, birds, elephants, and other creatures with incredible detail and intricacy.

Jewett recently exhibited at Anticipation – the 67th World Science Fiction Convention in Montreal and will also show at the Guelph Studio Tour in Ontario, Canada from October 16th – 18th 2009.

For more information, visit Ellen’s Deviant Art profile “Creatures from El”, or her website CreaturesFromEl.ca.

Patricia Piccinini: Hyperrealism

August 19, 2009 By Wendy Campbell

Today, we look at the hyperrealist sculptures of Patricia Piccinini. Piccinini was born in 1965 in Freetown, Sierra Leone and moved to Australia in 1972. Piccinini has a Bachelor of Arts (Economic History), from the Australian National University and a Bachelor of Arts in Painting from the Victorian College of the Arts.

To construct her bizarre but lovable characters, Piccinini uses a number of ingredients including silicone, fibreglass, human hair, leather, plywood, clothing, polyurethane, leather, and mdf.

Piccinini has received worldwide attention for her works that explore themes of biotechnology and contemporary ideas about nature that take us to a “post-Darwinian destination populated with fantastical creatures, new communities and bioethical conundrums.”

Children are often featured in Piccinini’s sculptures: “A young child represents possibility, both positive and negative. Also babies don’t make judgments. The world is totally new to them – they just take it in. They have no expectation and are always surprised. Children aren’t threatening. On the contrary, they bring out the best in us; we want to care for them, protect them. I use children to evoke the idea of vulnerability. In my work, it is often the creatures that seem vulnerable. They are mostly reliant on us and at our mercy.”

Piccinini is not only a sculptor, but works in a variety of mediums including drawing, painting, video, sound, interactive CD’s, and digital images. She has had numerous solo and group exhibitions worldwide including Australia, New York, Japan, Peru and the Philippines, Germany, Spain, Netherlands, France, Italy, Wales, Korea, and New Zealand.

To explore more of Patricia Piccinini’s diverse works, visit PatriciaPiccinini.net.

Souces: Brooklyn Museum, National Gallery of Victoria

Stephen Fitz-Gerald: Metal Sculpture

August 17, 2009 By Wendy Campbell

This week’s Deviant is Northern California metal sculptor Stephen Fitz-Gerald. Fitz-Gerald grew up in an isolated fishing village on the coast of Maine. Both of his parents were artists and Fitz-Gerald began learning metal sculpting at an early age.

Fitz-Gerald feels very strongly in the Renaissance ideal of becoming competent in many mediums. He works in diverse mediums from sculpture to photography, decorative arts such as jewelry and furniture, as well as outdoor structures such as fountains, gates, gazebos, trellises and winery doors. If that wasn’t enough, he also composes trance-ambient music and writes fiction and poetry. Of this ideal he says:

“Some ideas are better expressed in a song than in a drawing or more clearly portrayed in sculpture than flat work. The more artistic languages you speak, the more chances of you getting your message across. And the positive side benefit of this versatility, which the Renaissance artists knew, is that each medium has an energy signature, and they each tend to stimulate each other. So rather than the effect of depletion occurring, as one might expect by spreading oneself too thin, actually the reverse occurs. There is a compounding of energy that allows a jumping from one medium to the next in a dynamic cycle of inspiration and insight.”

To see more of Stephen Fitz-Gerald’s work, visit his profile on Deviant Art or his website: Stephen Fitz-Gerald Fine Art.com

Sources: Interview – Pieces-Zine

Art-e-Facts: 5 Random Art Facts VI

August 11, 2009 By Wendy Campbell

1. The term Trompe-l’œil, (French for “that which deceives the eye”), is an art technique where the artist reproduces realistic images that fools the viewers’ eye into perceiving an image as three-dimensional. Artists have been creating Trompe l’oeil art since the discovery of perspective techniques dating as far back as 400 B. C. and it was part of the culture of the Greek and Roman Empires.

2. When the Germans invaded Czechoslovakia in 1939, Art Nouveau pioneer Alphonse Mucha was one of the first to be arrested by the Gestapo. He was questioned and eventually released, but having suffered from pneumonia shortly beforehand, his health was weakened by the ordeal. He died not long after on July 14, 1939. Over 100,000 Czechs attended the funeral despite a Nazi ban on the event.

3. Marcel Duchamp spent more than eight years creating his masterpiece “The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors( aka The Large Glass)”. After an exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum in New York in 1926, the glass was shattered in transit. Duchamp thought of the accident as another part of its design that was determined by chance. He spent weeks carefully reassembling the pieces.

4. Body painting is considered by many to be the most ancient form of art. The discovery of coloured pigments about 75 thousand years ago (many believe even further back) indicates that long before people covered their bodies with clothing, they decorated themselves with paint.

5. On June 3, 1968, Andy Warhol and art critic/curator Mario Amaya, were shot by Valerie Solanas after she was turned away from Warhol’s Factory studio. Warhol’s wound was almost fatal and would affect him physically and mentally for the rest of his life.

Sources: Springville Museum of Art, MoMA, MoMA, Skin, Wikipedia
Related Posts on DAF: Alphonse Mucha, Marcel Duchamp, Body Painting, Andy Warhol

Jeremy Mayer: Typewriter Sculpture

August 7, 2009 By Wendy Campbell

Today, I stumbled across the work of Palo Alto, California based artist Jeremy Mayer. Mayer disassembles old typewriters and reassembles them into full-scale, anatomically correct human figures and other sci-fi-ish bugs and animals.

Interested in typewriters since childhood, Mayer started working with the machines in 1994 while living in Iowa. With an interest in assembly in nature, he pays close attention to the strong trend in science and technology towards the emulation of natural systems.

Of his work, Mayer says “I think of the typewriter as a product of nature – it was designed by minds immersed in nature around them, and mimicked the curves, geometry, and physical processes abounding in nature. Though it is cold metal created by human hands, the typewriter is just as much a natural material as stone or wood. I concentrate on bringing this fascination with the raw material and interest in science and science fiction together in the subtleties of the human form.”

Each full scale sculpture uses 40 typewriters and takes about 1200 hours to assemble. What’s also amazing is that Mayer does not solder, weld, or glue any of the materials. He also creates charcoal drawings based on ideas about biotechnology and nanotechnology.

Mayer’s work has been shown in group and solo exhibitions across the US with a current show at the Device Gallery in San Diego. For more information on this unique artist, visit JeremyMayer.com.

5 Women Artists You Should Know: Vol. 2

August 5, 2009 By Wendy Campbell

1. Laura Wheeler Waring – May 16, 1887 – Feb. 3, 1948: Born in Hartford, Connecticut, Waring attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, graduating in 1914. Waring was awarded the Cresson Traveling Scholarship and studied Expressionism and Romanticism at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere in Paris.

Much of Waring’s work was focused on portraiture though she also painted still life and landscapes. She was among the first artists displayed in the United State’s first all African American art exhibit that was held in 1927 by the Harmon Foundation – an organization that promoted the work of African American artists, writers, educators and scientists. In 1943, the Harmon Foundation commissioned Waring to paint the series “Portraits of Outstanding American Citizens of Negro Origin”, which included W.E.B. DuBois, George Washington Carver, Marian Anderson, and James Weldon Johnson.

From the late 1920’s until her death in 1948, Warren worked as an art instructor and director of the art and music departments at Pennsylvania’s Cheyney State Teachers College (now Cheyney University).

2. Georgia O’keeffe – Nov 15, 1887 – March 6, 1986: Considered to be a pioneer of American modernism, O’keeffe was born in Wisconsin and studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1905 and at the Art Students League in New York in 1907.

From 1908-1910, O’keeffe worked as a commercial artist in Chicago for a few years and then moved to Charlottesville in 1910 with her family, where she studied drawing at the University of Virginia. In the following eight years, O’Keeffe studied art and art education, taught art, traveled, and worked on developing her unique style – a blend of symbolism, abstraction, and photography with subjects including cityscapes, landscapes, figure studies, and flower paintings.

After 1929, O’keeffe she spent most summers painting in New Mexico and moved there permanently in 1949. She worked in pencil and watercolor until 1982 and then in clay from the mid-1970s to 1984 due to her failed eyesight. O’keeffe received numerous awards, including the American Medal of Freedom and the National Medal of Arts.

3. Elaine Fried de Kooning – March 12, 1918 – Feb. 1, 1989: Born in Brooklyn, NY, de Kooning was a successful painter, sculptor, draughtswoman, printmaker, writer, and wife of fellow artist Willem de Kooning. She studied in New York at the Leonardo da Vinci Art School, the American Art School, the Academy school, and with Willem de Kooning.

De Kooning was interested in both figurative and abstract art, acknowledging the influence of her husband and of the Abstract Expressionists of the New York School. Her first solo exhibition occurred at the Stable Gallery in New York in 1952 and she presented almost annually at numerous institutional and commercial galleries throughout the United States.

Portraits were an important part of De Kooning’s output, though she never considered them to her main focus as a painter. When producing portraits, she worked on several canvases at the same time, creating three or more versions of the same portrait.

While her artistic reputation was somewhat overshadowed by her husband’s fame, de Kooning was able to establish a name as an artist and as an art critic. As well, she taught at numerous institutions including Bard College, University of Georgia, University of Pennsylvania, University of California at Davis, in New York at the Cooper Union, Parsons School of Design, and Pratt Institute, and others.

4. Louise Bourgeois – December 25, 1911: Born in Paris, Bourgeois is perhaps best known for her spider sculptures titled “Maman”. She initially studied mathematics at the Sorbonne in 1932 but left to study art instead. In the mid to late 1930s, she studied at the École des Beaux-Arts, Académie de la Grande-Chaumière, École du Louvre, Atelier Fernand Léger, and other schools in Paris.

Bourgeois married American art historian Robert Goldwater, and in 1938, moved to New York where she studied for two years at the Art Students League. Bourgeois began her career as a painter and engraver, turning to wood sculpture in the late 1940’s.

In the mid 1950’s Bourgeois’ artwork explored issues such as internal distress, fear, vulnerability, and loss of control. She worked with bronze, plaster, and marble, and her previous rigid, upright sculptures evolved into smooth, organic shapes. In the 1960’s Bourgeois’ works became larger and were executed in bronze, carved stone, and rubber latex. During this time, she explored relationships between men and women in her artwork which became more sexually explicit.

Bourgeois’s achievements have been recognized with numerous honours and awards including National Medal of Arts and a grand prize in sculpture from the French Ministry Culture. She died on May 31, 2010 – creating artwork until her death.

5. Sonia Delaunay – Nov. 14, 1885 – Dec. 5, 1979: Born Sarah Stern (nicknamed Sonia), in the Ukraine, Delaunay moved to St. Petersburg at the age of five to live with a wealthy uncle, taking his surname, Terk. She studied art in Karlsruhe, Germany and in Paris in 1905, where she would live most of her life.

Delaunay married French painter Robert Delaunay with whom she had a son, Charles. Both Sonia and Robert developed an offshoot of cubism known as Orphism (aka Simultaneism). Orphism was similar to cubism in its abstraction but was based on the real world and used bright colours and repeating patterns similar in some aspects to Russian folk art.

Delaunay was a prolific artist working in many mediums. Throughout her career, she created paintings as well as public murals, theatrical, graphic, fashion, and interior designs, and designs for playing cards, ceramics, mosaics, and stained glass.

Delaunay received numerous awards for her work and in 1964 became the first living female artist to have a retrospective exhibition at the Louvre. In 1975 she was named an officer of the French Legion of Honor.

***Read the first installment of 5 Women Artists You Should Know***

Sources: PBS, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts, Guggenheim, National Museum of Women in the Arts

Lesley-Anne Green: Odd Dolls

August 1, 2009 By Wendy Campbell

For some reason, I am drawn to strange and slightly creepy dolls. The creatures featured in this post are by artist Lesley-Anne Green. Born in Huntsville, Ontario, Canada, Green moved to Toronto to attend Sheridan College’s Ceramics Program. After graduating, she took what she’d learned about clay and pots and started making one-of-a-kind clay sculptures and dolls.

Green currently lives and works in Toronto, and shares her home/studio with her cartoonist husband Jeff Lemire and their three cats. Her work has been exhibited in Toronto, Santa Fe, Seattle, and Berlin.

To see more of Lesley-Anne Green’s strangely wonderful creations visit lesleyannegreen.blogspot.com.

Marcel Duchamp: 1887-1968

July 28, 2009 By Wendy Campbell

Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp was born to a family of artists on July 28, 1887, near Blainville, France. Three of his siblings were successful artists and Duchamp was the grandson of painter and engraver Emile Nicolle.

From 1904-05, Duchamp studied painting at the Académie Julian but by his own admission, preferred playing billiards. His early works were influenced by the Post-Impressionist style however in 1911, Duchamp developed his own form of Cubism that combined earthy colours, mechanical forms and the depiction of repetitive images of objects or bodies in motion. Perhaps the most well known in this style was his 1912 painting “Nude Descending a Staircase” that was shown at the Salon del de la Section d’Or and later created great controversy at the 1913 Armory Show in New York.

After 1912, Duchamp rarely painted, preferring instead to create his own brand of art which he coined “readymades”. Readymades were one or more ordinary everyday objects that were slightly altered then signed by the artist. Duchamp’s earliest readymades included “Bicycle Wheel” (a wheel mounted on a wooden stool), a snow shovel called “In Advance of the Broken Arm”, and a urinal titled “Fountain” that he signed “R. Mutt”. Of his own readymades, Duchamp spoke of how using prefabricated objects freed him from the ‘trap’ of developing a particular style or taste.

In 1915, Duchamp traveled to New York, where he associated with patron and artist Katherine Dreier, and artist Man Ray, with whom he founded the Société Anonyme in 1920, and other avant-garde figures. Between 1915 and 1923, Duchamp created his most complex work “The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, (aka The Large Glass)” which was constructed of two panes of glass with materials such as lead foil, fuse wire, and dust.

In 1918, Duchamp took a break from the New York art scene and traveled to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he became fascinated with and played chess for nine months. Duchamp returned to Paris in 1919 and associated with the Dada group. In New York in 1920, he made his first motor-driven constructions and invented Rrose Sélavy, his feminine alter ego.

Duchamp returned to Paris in 1923 and appeared to have abandoned art for chess but did in fact continue his artistic endeavors. From the mid-1930s, he collaborated and exhibited with the Surrealists. In the 1940s, he associated and exhibited with the Surrealists in New York, and in 1946 began “Etant donnés,” a major assemblage piece which he secretly worked on for twenty years. In 1942, Duchamp settled permanently in New York and became a United States citizen in 1955. In 1954, he married Alexina “Teeny” Duchamp whom he had met in Paris in 1923.

Duchamp’s influence on the art scene was relatively small until the 1950’s when young artists such as Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, seeking something beyond Abstract Expressionism, “discovered” his work. Duchamp gained international public recognition in the 1960’s with his first retrospective exhibition at the Pasadena Art Museum in 1963, a large exhibit at the Tate Gallery in 1966, and showings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Philadelphia Art Museum.

Marcel Duchamp died on October 2, 1968 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, and is buried in the Rouen Cemetery. He is considered by many to be the single most important influence on the formation and direction of Pop Art, Minamalism, and conceptional art of the 1960’s and 70’s. As well, his idea of the “readymade” forever altered our understanding of what constitutes a work of art.

For a complete biography of Marcel Duchamp, see the sources links below.

Sources: MOMA, Guggenheim, Tate Online, Wikipedia

Kamakura – Buddha – Art & Religion

June 3, 2009 By Wendy Campbell

Recently, I had the opportunity to visit Kamakura, a small town just outside of Tokyo. The city is home to many beautiful Buddhist Temples and Shinto Shrines. For me, the highlight of the visit was the bronze statue of the Amida Buddha at Kōtoku-in Temple. Sculpted in approximately 1252 by One-Goroemon and Tanji-Hisatomo, the statue stands 13.35m tall and weighs about 93 tons. The Buddha, which now stands in open air, was housed in a temple until the structure was destroyed by a tsunami in 1498.

Art and religion have been bound together for thousands of years. Most religions use artwork to glorify, idealize, and tell stories of their beliefs. The Daibutsu (large Buddha) symbolizes peace and meditation in life. The original, statue would have looked quite different from what remains today. It was made using a guilt-bronze technique. Gilding is a method where objects made of bronze or copper are coated with a thin layer of gold or gold leaf. As time passed, the gilt on the Great Buddha wore off, and today only traces of the original coloring remains in its ears.

Visiting the Daibtsu was awe-inspiring. The statue is colossal and one experiences a feeling of smallness in its presence. Yet, at the same time, there is a sense of peace and intimacy. I witnessed many visitors walking around and around, attempting to take the perfect photo. But the perfect image was achieved for me when I sat down on a nearby stone and just hung with the Buddha for a while, carving into my memory the experience of that day.

To discover more about the making of Buddhist statues visit Onmark Productions. For great information about the history of Kamakura, visit Kamakura Today.

Great Buddha at Kōtoku-in Temple © Wendy Campbell

Souces: Brooklyn Museum, National Gallery of Victoria

Sources: Springville Museum of Art, MoMA, MoMA, Skin, Wikipedia Related Posts on DAF: Alphonse Mucha, Marcel Duchamp, Body Painting, Andy Warhol

Sources: PBS, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts, Guggenheim, National Museum of Women in the Arts

Sources: On Mark Productions, Wikipedia, Kamakura Today

Sources: Springville Museum of Art, MoMA, MoMA, Skin, Wikipedia
Related Posts on DAF: Alphonse Mucha, Marcel Duchamp, Body Painting, Andy Warhol