Anthony Gormeley’s series of 31 life-size body cast sculptures have made their way to the rooftops of San Paulo and apparently the panicked calls to emergency services have been coming in steadily. In 2011, the sculptures were exhibited in New York and the NYPD had to issue a public statement informing citizens that they were not suicide jumpers. And in London in 2007, 999 emergency calls were made when the sculptures were exhibited at the capitol. The 61-year-old artist uses his own body as a model to sculpt the figures that are made from cast iron and glass fibre.
(Source: cbyht)
(Source: cbyht)
“I have always been fascinated by portraiture. To me a successful portrait has a presence. It has weight. The portrait evokes the emotional presence of the subject as well as the viewer. In my exploration, the defining goal is to create a portrait that becomes an experience to view. By using the familiarity of the face as the template, my process involves hand painting the developer in the darkroom, intentionally revealing specific, desired aspects of the face in the negative. Doing so creates a stark negative space that gives the portrait a lucidity. Instead of creating a realistic, straight from film portrait, I am more interested in exploring how the original image can be brought to the surface in alternative ways. The portraits embody their own unique strangeness. I enable the viewer to process impressions of a face, and of the shape of a head. I am comfortable with the viewer ultimately feeling uncomfortable. My job as an artist is to challenge the viewer. Make the viewer see differently, think differently, and most importantly, feel differently.” - Timothy Pakron
