Our last Kick-About together featured Murano glass as its muse, which included a work by Francesca Maxwell, in which some formerly broken pieces of artful glass were fused together to make a new and satisfying whole. Inspired by the artist, Michael Landy, this latest showcase of new works made in a short time is likewise preoccupied with the breaking things down and building things up again. Happy browsing, and if you want to peruse any previous editions of The Kick-About, you’ll find them anthologised here.
Charly Skilling
“When I started looking at Landy’s sculptures, those strange fusions of natural anatomy and man-made mechanics, I suddenly found myself thinking about Grandma Lil…“
Tom Beg
“I’ve had the foundation of these images sitting around unused and unseen for months, although originally in a garish multi-coloured form that never quite worked for me. Michael Landy’s line drawings, combined with his unabashed use of negative space, finally gave me the inspiration to settle on a final look and push them more towards a bit of understated elegance.”
twitter.com/earthlystranger / vimeo.com/tombeg / tombeg.com
Phil Gomm
“So lots going on here this week! I went with ‘fragments and saints’ as my starter-for-ten, and then looked around for the sort of broken stuff I had about the place in abundance. We’ve got piles of smashed terracotta flower pots in the garden, and I got this feeling I could create some kind of robes-based body-shape from the various fragments. With the aid of some strong contact adhesive I sat down one night and just assembled something that approximated some kind of ceremonial garment with big collars and the semblance of wide sleeves. I had a few references in mind: kimonos, Chinese opera, monastic robes, the Skeksis from The Dark Crystal, the character designs from The Secret Of Kells, Moebius’s designs for the spacesuits from Alien, the tailors from Street of Crocodiles… Once I’d ‘Frankenstein-ed’ the body together, I used filler to mortar the whole lump together, before sanding it all back to arrive at the final form. Some white spray paint and a vinyl doll’s head-on-a-lolly-stick later… and I ended up with these rather contemplative characters: part-monk, part-Pope, part-angel, part-cruet…”
James Randall
“I wasn’t aware of Michael Landy… what a funny mix of exacting drawings and machines and pulling stuff to pieces! So I went down the path of the big circular machine that breaks stuff to pieces“.
Graeme Daly
“I really wanted to animate some of those things seen in Landy’s installations. In my mind’s eye, I could see those cogs and machinery whirring and buzzing, but alas It was a bit more than I could chew with limited time. So I did some searching and found some images of Landy’s designs that made me think of something else. I downloaded a bunch of 3D models and created a few simple shapes myself. I then compiled them on top of each other and added a toon contour effect to the renders to strip back the 3D quality and make them more flat. I always enjoy trying to peel back the 3D quality of 3D engines for something more analogue.”
@graemedalyart / vimeo.com/graemedaly / linkedin.com/in/graeme-daly / twitter.com/Graeme_Daly / gentlegiant.blog
And from the fragments, sections and pieces of Michael Landy, to the close-ups, details, forms and isolated shapes of photographer, Karl Blossfeldt. Have fun and see you again soon.
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