I built this thing tonight. It's the first in a series of sculptures that I'm planning. The overall theme involves combining a variety of materials into new objects that are both anthropomorphic and mechanical in nature. This one is named Demagogue and it is a scale model of a fictitious war machine that is so large it could crush a building underfoot. It is made from a flowerpot, plastic bottles, and wooden craft sticks.
Usually, I try to paint everything that I build. I've always painted things, and I usually feel inclined to cover things up as force of habit. I'm not going to paint this one though, because the materials are interesting enough on their own. No point in trying to disguise what is already there.
I felt positive about this piece while I was working on it. It is a machine of death bristling with toy guns, whose purpose is to deal with warfare on an absurd level: This is war as I see it, filtered through the video games that I play, the tabletop miniatures that I collect, and the science fiction novels that I read. Absurd because it is so disconnected from the true realities of war. Why do I insulate myself from what I should fear?
Here's a close-up shot. I've still got some work to do on this. Some details need to get filled out and there are a few more layers of material I want to add.
More to come.
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