Fruitylicious

Hey there. Has it been a while or what? So what finally brought me back? Well, as the end of summer  rolled around, I was always biking past a particular tree. This tree was covered in deep green leaves and was dripping with bright orange berries. I couldn't get the tree out of my head, and I decided that I really wanted to try to capture it in mobile form (you'll have to read to the end to see the finished product). 

So back to this tree.. I fell in love with working with 'abstract' pieces again while working on it. I simply let the tree evolve into what it wanted to be while I was sculpting it. Also- it is painted! As you may have noticed in the past I have stuck with mostly just the plain sheet metal. However this time I felt it was time for some color. Let me just say- painting metal has brought about its own challenges, but I am slowly perfecting the process. 

After completing the tree- and being very happy with myself- I realised that I had to keep going. That's how the lemons, tangerines and avocados came into being. As I thought of these fruit pieces as experiments, I kept them as smaller wall sized sculptures. I intend to explore this further and try out some more fruit and veg this way.  I'll stop chatting now so you can go check them out for yourself.

P.s.- if you're in the area, these are all on display in Galleri SoHo, Gallerian in Västerås.

Stockholm & the Museum of Modern Art

Big Fish in the Sea

Ohhh this big fish. Did I mention this fish was big? When I was commissioned to make a larger version of my original fish sculpture, (albeit a different species of fish) I was excited, because it meant I would be venturing into new territory with my sculptures. When I say new territory, I mean a cross between super intricate cutting methods of metal, more parts than ever, and heavy pendulums- which my current materials just weren't ready for. Did I learn a lot? Yes. Am I happy with the end result. Hell yes. Did this sculpture push me and annoy me to bits.... Yes. New techniques/ newly learned: 

• Bolting wires to metal parts. This tidbit I had borrowed from Calder himself. When I visited an exhibition on his works in London, I carefully studied how he managed to construct his larger mobiles- and bolts were utilised everywhere. 
• Using thicker wires. There were certain parts on the fish that needed to have quite a long "arm" from the pivot point so as to place them correctly. Well, my high ductile, skinny fencing wire just wasn't cutting it anymore and was bending all over the place. So I used some of my engineering skills, and ordered the appropriate poles in stainless steel to hold up the weight correctly. Looking back, I wish I had used the stainless steel everywhere. I know for the future then.. 
• Patience. The tail itself took 3 hours of carefully cutting on the CNC milling machine. The fish has 13 pieces total. You do the math. 

This project was a huge undertaking, but as always, hard projects make you grow and develop the most. Hope you're as excited as I am to see what is to come.

 

Huge thanks to Erik Nordén for the beautiful photography.