FROM WITHIN: A SCULPTURE SERIES
This is a series of sculptures created from within – by a chemical explosion in the composition of industrial cast clear acrylic. Made from this transparent, long-lasting material, the From Within sculptures embody the ethereal and eternal inner realm of human energy.
THE TECHNIQUE
The artwork is made at a factory from the same clear acrylic used in transparent objects such as windows, protective screens in medical facilities, retail counters and offices, water bottles, safety glasses, and more. In a factory, liquid acrylic undergoes a standard curing process – a chemical reaction. The process is adjusted by the artist in a very subtle way, causing the chemical reaction to progress into a chemical explosion. The artwork is formed by the behaviour of the chemical composition of industrial acrylic itself, with no added chemicals. This technique was invented by the artist. As the acrylic solidifies, a sphere, formed by the explosion, is captured. Each sculpture is shaped in an unrepeatable way by an individual explosion – each one is truly unique.
ENERGY
The sculptures created from within themselves metaphorically embody the process of energy originating inside a person and generating thought and feeling that lead to action – realizing the same creation from the inside outwards. These translucent, ethereal sculptures thereby incarnate the immaterial yet critical sphere of inner human activity. These explosions captured in long-lasting material symbolize the eternal, mystical, and powerful nature of the domain within us.
NATURAL
Acrylic, for better or for worse, is a phenomenal material with no equivalent in the natural world due to its engineering at the very level of chemical structure, which is what makes it so strangely malleable and durable. It is a product of human intervention at the deepest possible level. The sculptures, made using the same process and material employed in everyday structures and objects – adjusted only slightly by the artist – exemplify how a subtle shift can provoke an explosion, uncovering a potent property inherent in this human-engineered matter, which had previously lain dormant.
Created from within, each sculpture embodies a conception and a birth. Furthermore, certain works in the series visually resemble bodily organs, such as a heart, or an embryo. These qualities suggest the concept of new life being conceived, albeit through artificial means. The work can therefore be seen as a result of human engineering that pushes boundaries of the ‘natural’, striving to transcend and enrich our perception of ‘nature’.
ETERNITY
Eternity has been the ultimate aspiration of art for thousands of years. In the Upper Paleolithic period around 40,000 years ago, early humans carved figures from long-lasting ivory, creating some of the earliest known artworks that, due to their material, have endured to this day. Ancient Egyptians sculpted portraits of kings from imperishable granite so that their souls would continue to exist forever. In Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, early Christian and Byzantine art, and the Renaissance, through the creation of architecture, sculpture, and religious iconography using long-lasting materials such as stone, bronze, gold, and ceramics, art has been used to express humanity's quest for eternal essences, universal order, and the divine. As art became more secular, artists strove to capture the timeless truths of the human condition and the eternal that transcends the ephemeral human condition, using long-lasting materials like oil paint and synthetic acrylic paint, alongside the previously mentioned materials. In their pursuit of capturing the eternal, artists across millennia have sought materials that would endure as close to eternity as possible. Beauty itself has been a form of eternity in many artistic traditions. The quest to create something aesthetically beautiful or sublime is an attempt to reach and capture a timeless essence that transcends the fleeting nature of human existence. With the use of the most long-lasting materials available, artists aim to achieve a timeless beauty that continues to inspire and create awe across centuries. The ‘From Within’ artwork series, made from the everlasting material, expressing timeless subject matter and aesthetic beauty, belongs to both the physical and metaphysical realms of eternity.
SUSTAINABILITY
The artwork series, implemented in acrylic, in its jewel-like beauty, treats acrylic as something unique and precious, rather than expendable and disposable. All of the waste plastic material from this project is processed into the factory’s branded recycled material. It is the same material I used to create my sculpture Formation in collaboration with the factory. Please note that in the Formation, I utilized the recycled material in a more unconventional way than is typical in their industrial production.
PERCEPTUAL EFFECTS
The artwork has a uniquely evocative effect that can't be conveyed through photos. The sculptures are transparent and highly reflective, attracting and concentrating physical light from the surrounding space. The large, glass-like volumes of the sculptures get filled with daylight and shine like ‘vessels of glow’. When looking at the sculptures in person, they somehow fill you with a feeling of visceral light — a happy, tranquil, and fulfilling sensation.
From Within: Conception , 33 x 24 x 24 cm, 2024
In the wide-shot photos, you can observe how the explosion drew energy from within, creating vortices at both the bottom and the top.
In the close-up photos, you can see the explosion waves that formed the air sphere.
From Within I
Here, just like in FW V, you can see the frozen-in-time explosion waves.
From Within: Beginning
From Within: Power
Here, you can see the explosion bursting from the cube shape in which the material was cast.
From Within III
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From Within 0
