As we continue a look into our Team within the world of David Stark Design and Production, I have a special treat for you all today ... a guest post from our fabulous Studio Production Manager, Alfonso Nieto. Alfonso works hand-in-hand with our design team to make our drawings come alive. From constructing a 16-foot tall pencil to a 10-foot metal laptop sculpture, there is nothing too challenging for this producer extraordinaire. Today, Alfonso gives us a look at one of his other passions, creating art out of resin. Hereee’s Alfonso . . .
I have always felt an attraction to transparencies and solid transparent volumetric objects, like ice and glass. While I was in Art School back in Chile in the early 90's, I was using resin and fiberglass as a sculpting medium and was fascinated with the material left in the mixing pots.
Polyester resin is an unsaturated, thermosetting styrene based compound. It is a clear viscous liquid that can be died with pigments or mixed with "fillers" to add color or change it’s viscosity and strength. It's also thermosetting: When mixed with the right amount of a catalyst, it goes thru an exothermic reaction, releasing heat before turning in to a hard, solid mass, and is commonly used to reinforce composite fibers like fiberglass, carbon fiber and Kevlar to make things like helmets, boats, furniture, and many other industrial applications.
It has also been used by many artists as a medium to produce art pieces. Here are some amazing examples, including some of my own work.
“Key chain”. Random objects in resin, 1995. (Alfonso Nieto)
Curtain finials, resin and pigments, 1998 (Alfonso Nieto)
“Turtle shell” wall sconce. Resin and pigments. 2003 (Alfonso Nieto)
Nucleo has filtered disused names and experiences, re‐worked old pieces of furniture such as consoles, desks, bedside tables and fireplace chairs. The furniture is both ancient and contemporary, revived and restored into new life. The cubes, 5×5 cm are cast in epoxy resin and grouped together create the objects. They are assembled by hand, giving balance between body and space, where individual fragments develop its own intensity – capable of capturing light and gaze – which goes beyond their function in the context of composition.
As part of his Invasion Toys show, Tan‐Ki created thirty‐nine 8” KiClear Invasion figures -- impressive! Each features his 8” clear figure with wondrous colorful inserted objects including toys (check out the Devilrobots inspired one above), colored bits + more. Tan‐Ki’s work exposes yet another facet of the awesome world of art toys. Be sure to check out his blog to see all thirty-nine.
Light Box by Studio Jo Meesters. While it looks like a cabinet, the Light Box is actually a floor lamp. Remember, never judge a book by its cover! Light Box is a series of lamps made in the tradition of furniture making. The lamp which is made out of wood has a pattern of 8000 holes reinforced with transparant resin.
Turkish artist, Kerem Ozan Bayraktar, practices a full range of artistic endeavors. Outside of fine paintings, the artist has also produced a range of moving pictures and objects. The objects, focused here, are a set named “Ice Cubes.” The series finds Bayraktar suspending a series of objects in resin … giving the appearance of frozen goods. My personal favorite is “Skadi” (2008), a bicycle shown below.
Ronit Judelman is a psychologist turned artist. Baby Doll, as an installation, is an army of transparent resin dolls in which plastic hand-grenades are encapsulated. Aggression, impending doom and tension are implied by the use of the undetonated hand-grenades, which deliver a specific anti-military message. The soft, the cuddly and the vital is stiff and still. An object of love is "pregnant" with death and destruction. Persecuting and persecuted, Baby Doll alludes to child suicide bombers as well as to Invisible Children, a name given to child soldiers in Africa.
This amazing Japanese artist, Riusuke Fukahori, paints realistic 3D fish inside real objects over resin. The amount of detail, light and shadow and the resin application over real objects creates an amazing realism in this new reading of figurative art.
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