Found Object Art Archives – Daily Art Fixx

Edouard Martinet: Assemblage Art

July 12, 2012 By Wendy Campbell

More great pieces from French sculptor Edouard Martinet. Martinet transforms everyday objects found in flea-markets and car boot sales into works of art. Working with a variety of refuse materials such as rusted kitchen pans, typewriter keys, car lights and other scrap metals, Martinet sculpts several types of animals and insects and are made without the use of solder. He fits each component into place as if putting together a puzzle of random pieces and parts. Each piece is carefully assembled after having drafted several detailed sketches.

To see more of Martinet’s work, visit EdouardMartinet.net or Sladmore Gallery.

Sayaka Ganz: Reclaimed Creations

May 26, 2012 By Wendy Campbell

Some recent work from Sayaka Ganz (featured). Ganz was born in Yokohama, Japan and grew up living in Japan, Brazil, and Hong Kong. Currently she teaches design and drawing courses at Indiana University–Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW). Using reclaimed scrap metal and plastic household objects as her materials, Sayaka’s recent sculptures depict animals in motion.

“Scrap metal pieces themselves are ultimately what trigger my imagination to create these animal sculptures. Every piece has its own history and memory, bent, torn and rusted from being used outdoors for a long time. They are lifelike and organic in that sense. Looking at them inspires me and almost instinctively I see, for example, a dog’s head, a bird’s leg, or a deer’s back. Then in response I go and find other pieces that could fit to create the whole animal.”

To see more, visit SayakaGanz.com.

Christopher Conte: Sculpture

January 4, 2012 By Wendy Campbell

Norway native Christopher Conte was raised and currently lives in New York. Conte has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and worked in prosthetics making artificial limbs for amputees for 16 years as a Certified Prosthetist. At the same time, he privately created biomechanical sculptures and 2008 became a full-time artist.

Conte’s sculptures combine original cast components with found and recycled parts using materials ranging from bronze to carbon fiber and often including materials from the aerospace industry and medical fields.

“While a strong connection with future technologies is present in all of Chris’ work, ancient techniques such as lost-wax bronze casting have become an integral part of the process as well. The process involved in creating just one sculpture can often take weeks or even months.”

Conte has exhibited across the United States and his work has appeared on The Discovery Channel, in Discover Magazine, Wired Magazine, MTV Networks and in Popular Science Magazine.

To see more, visit Microbotic.org.

Dan Bentley: Assemblage Art

March 5, 2011 By Wendy Campbell

Born in an army hospital in Shirley, Massachusetts, Dan Bentley learned to walk and talk in Mineral Wells, Texas, and has lived in Rochester, New York since about 1978.

Dan’s “build it himself” style of education landed him at the Rochester Institute of Technology where he studied a mix of Engineering and Fine Arts, resulting in a 35 year career as a product designer.

“Since I was a child I have been fascinated by mechanical bits and pieces and how they go together to create things. My parents came to accept that I would disassemble my toys to see how they worked (and reassemble them). I outgrew my Tinker Toys early and spent lots of time building my own toys from “scratch,” putting various found and scrounged objects together to create the next go-cart or rocket. I grew up during the 1960’s when kids still had wood and metal shop classes in school; that’s where I learned the basics of how things are made and the tools used to manufacture them. My sculptures are the manifestation of the appreciation i have for the products i collect, a labor of love. My mission is to feature the aesthetics of manufactured products in unique sculpture. I collect products that have outlived their original use and recycle them as elements of my art. I strive for my art to pay homage to all product designers by continued appreciation of their talents.”

To see more of Dan Bentley’s work, visit DBentley.com or check out his photostream on Flickr.

Nemo Gould: Sculpture

September 19, 2010 By Wendy Campbell

Today I decided to catch up with the recent and “seriously silly” creations of California based artist Nemo Gould. Gould has been creating his odd creatures, robots, and kinetic sculptures from old vacuum cleaners, kitchen pots, gasoline pumps, and whatever else he can get his hands on, for more than 20 years. His work has been featured frequently in national media and is shown in Galleries and Museums throughout the U.S. and abroad.

Of his work, Gould says, “What makes a thing fascinating is to not completely know it. It is this gap in our understanding that the imagination uses as its canvass. Salvaged material is an ideal medium to make use of this principle. A “found object” is just a familiar thing seen as though for the first time. By maintaining this unbiased view of the objects I collect, I am able to create forms and figures that fascinate and surprise. These sculptures are both familiar and new. Incorporating consumer detritus with my own symbology, they are the synthesis of our manufactured landscape and our tentative place within it– strong and frail at the same time.”

Nemo is currently exhibiting at SF20 in San Francisco (September 16 – 19, 2010) and at the Visions of Paradise Exhibition at the Sonoma Valley Museum in Sonoma, California (August. 21 – November 7, 2010).

To see more of Nemo Gould’s work and to watch video of his sculptures in action, visit Nemomatic.com.

Chris Cole: Kinetic Sculpture

July 13, 2010 By Wendy Campbell

Oregon based artist Chris Cole’s work is derived from a fascination of physics, gravity, motion, light, and a definition of space.

“My kinetic sculptures and paintings are the result of a life spent exploring the relationships between the industrial and natural worlds, between human progress and humanity’s excesses. The Northwest, and the small towns that have been my home, provide the stark contrast of immense natural beauty overlaid with an industrial superstructure.

It is in this intersection of nature and industry that I find inspiration. So many of the seemingly surreal organisms that exist in the wild are both mirrored and threatened by human machinery.

My sculptures are heavily influenced by the visionaries of the industrial revolution. The quest for flight, the ceaseless desire for faster, more versatile and efficient transportation relied undeniably on the workings of the natural world. The 19th century produced mechanism from organism. Though I am thoroughly fascinated by machines, I am troubled by our culture’s resulting disconnection with the natural world. My work, therefore, considers a regression from mechanism back to organism.

Sculpture is a means through which I can explore the concepts of movement, functionality and esthetics. Understanding physics, and the way things work, has always been a fascination of mine. My paintings, alternatively, provide an avenue for a departure from the laws of physics. Through painting, I conceive of things as a blend of organism and mechanism. Since I was very young, I have been taking things apart and reconfiguring them in new and different ways, and painting allows me the greatest freedom in this aspect.”

For more about Chris Cole, visit ChrisColeDesigns.Squarespace.com.

Edouard Martinet: Sculpture

June 10, 2010 By Wendy Campbell

Edouard Martinet was born in Le Mans, France in 1963. He studied art at L’Ecole Supérieure des Arts Graphiques (ESAG), Paris and graduated in 1988. From 1988 – 1992 he lived and worked in Paris as a graphic designer, and in 1990 started sculpting and holding exhibitions. From 1992 – 95 he lived in Charente before moving to his current location in Rennes where he teaches art at L’Institut des Arts Appliques.

Martinet transforms everyday objects found in flea-markets and car boot sales into works of art. Working with a variety of refuse materials such as rusted kitchen pans, typewriter keys, car lights and other scrap metals, Martinet sculpts several types of animals and insects. His sculptures are made without the use of solder. He fits each component into place as if putting together a puzzle of random pieces and parts. Each piece is carefully assembled after having drafted several detailed sketches.

To see more of Martinet’s work, visit EdouardMartinet.com.

Damon Drummond aka Ultrajunk: Found Object Art

May 11, 2010 By Wendy Campbell

Damon Drummond aka Ultrajunk is a found object metal artist from Akron, Ohio, USA. His passions are robots, rayguns, lamps, and anything with a vintage science fiction or future Victoran style. From kitchen stove burners, bicycle headlights, old table legs, and other odds and ends, Drummond’s creations depend entirely on his daily finds at the scrap yard.

“I am lucky to live very close to 2 salvage scrap yards which I visit every day and scrounge through piles of salvaged metal and rusty goodness. You would not believe what gets scrapped. There is new junk every day so I never get tired of going there.”

To see more Ultrajunk, visit Damon’s photostream on Flickr.

Sources: Junk Market Style

Nemo Gould: Sculpture

September 30, 2009 By Wendy Campbell

Recently, I stumbled upon the wonderfully amusing found object and kinetic sculptures of Nemo Gould. Born to artist parents in 1975, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Gould has been creating his odd creatures and abstract sculptures from old vacuum cleaners, kitchen pots, gasoline pumps, and whatever else he can get his hands on, for more than 20 years.

Named after the protagonist in Windsor McKay’s comic strip “Little Nemo in Slumberland,” Gould’s work has fittingly evolved to reflect the images and mythology of comic books and Science Fiction. Equally as fitting is his tendency to collect and dismantle anything with moving parts.

Gould has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Kansas City Art Institute and a Masters of Fine Arts from U.C. Berkeley. After graduation, he quickly threw himself into the pursuit of his childhood dreams. “My work appeals to the 7-year-old boy mind, because I still have one… I take silly very seriously.”

Over his career, Gould has produced a prolific body of work that attempts to reconcile the innocent wonder of youth with the dull complexity of the adult experience. “Most adults are dangerously lacking in wonder. As we age and learn more of the answers to life’s mysteries, I think we lose part of what keeps us alive. When I am working, I am always trying to make things that can produce a child like response from a jaded adult—it’s a matter of life and death!”

Gould has exhibited in numerous galleries and museums across the United States and abroad and has been featured often in national media, including Wired and Juxtapoz magazines.

To see more of Nemo Gould’s work and to watch video of his sculptures in action, visit Nemomatic.com.