Project Details
Category
Fine art, painting, acrylic
Client
na
Date Added
2009
Project Brief
I have always been fascinated by the sculptural figure of high level athletes. The beauty of the contours makes us forget too easily the tremendous work and drive required as well as the severe regime these men must follow to achieve and maintain such bodies.
These life-size painting/casts are moulded on the Californian based actor Daz Crawford, whose career started as Gladiator, who kindly posed and modelled for me.
At 6 feet 7, 100kg of muscles, Daz’s sculptural body offered me an ideal surface to my very bold, fast brush strokes. Drawing on my applied art background, I made life-size casts from Crawford’s body to create a series of bold figures. The fragmented sculptures rise out of the canvas; shadow play and material manipulation give them life – yet they remain frozen in time, captured like in a snapshot. I used bold paintbrush strokes to highlight the natural power of rippling musculature, and the mixture of soft and rough surfaces add interest and depth. The viewer will see something new and different every time he looks at each piece.
I named each painting after its ’associated’ part in beef: Chuck, Breast, Rump, Flank and Tenderloin.
I called this collection ’Des corps et des hommes’ (Bodies and Men). They were exhibited in London GAY bar in Soho, the now Kopapa restaurant in Covent Garden and Greenwich Picturehouse. Most items in the collection were sold, I retained this one.
