Artist Mark Rafter shares a intriguing collection of boldly textured and vibrantly colored abstract sculpture. Go to his web-site to see extra of his do the job.
“Piggyback” EPS, cement, clay, acrylics, copper and iron, 31″ x 23″ x 3″
My wall-mounted and freestanding items are manufactured with expanded polystyrene, acrylics and cement, then concluded with a copper metal coating, rusting patinas, iron and acrylic paints. This one of a kind mixture of products enables me to create huge lightweight sculptures that are hugely textural with participating models and vivid colours.
“Meteor Plate” EPS, cement, clay, acrylics, copper and iron, 24″ x 24″ x 3″
I take into consideration my expressionistic sculptures to be a form of alchemy. The transformation of electrical power, unrelenting curiosity and recycled resources into is effective of art.
“Melting Point” EPS, cement, acrylics, metal, copper and iron, 27″ x 11″ x 6″
Artwork, genuinely built, is reflective of its creator. I am abstract at heart: I really like abnormality, I really don’t persuade clean surfaces, I embrace “mistakes” and entropy. I often make difficult sorts with convoluted boundaries, break things, soften stuff, generate dynamic textures and then finesse the disorder into artwork.
“Ferrous Wheel” EPS, cement, acrylics, metal, copper and iron, 28″ x 27″ x 3″
My art suits the idea of “outside art.” I have no official artwork schooling to discuss of. All the competencies, supplies awareness and processes inherent in my function are self-taught.
“Hoodoo” EPS, cement, acrylics, steel, copper and iron, 24″ x 24″ x 8″
A lengthy career as an engineer has been symbiotic with my many years-long enchantment with creating artwork. Great engineering and high quality artwork have many items in typical, like the want to develop processes, resolve complications, to take a look at and experiment. I imagine these factors to be critically critical to pushing boundaries in the generation of exceptional will work of artwork.
“What’s the Frequency” EPS, acrylics, copper and iron on canvas, 24″ x 24″ x 2″
My perform consistently piques the curiosity of people inclined to consider the time to seem. Like quite a few artworks, my pieces have both equally a macro and a micro check out. Just one ordinarily commences by hunting at the in general piece, it’s condition and colors, contrasts, constructive and detrimental space in the style and design, and so on.
“Course Correction” EPS, cement, glass, acrylics, copper and iron, 24″ x 48″ x 3″
In Rust Elegy this macro displays, in impact, a “sculpture inside a sculpture” as the vibrant inner variety contrasts with deep pink, browns and rust of the outer sort. If you search yet again, you may see that this outer type is by itself an homage to a different famed artwork.
“Rust Elegy” EPS, cement, clay, acrylics, metal, copper and iron, 28″ x 21″ x 6″
In the shut up (depth) view of the exact same piece, the craggy moon rock-like texture of the rusty outer variety is the end result of molten plastic immediately cooling and expending all the air captured in the making of “expanded” polystyrene. This delivers an engaging, rugged floor for acid patinas to settle in and dissolve iron particles into a rusty varnish.
“Rust Elegy” (element)
The material applied in the “inner sculpture” is a handmade mixture of mortar clay, cement, sand and paper pulp that is malleable like modeling clay but air dries to a cement hardness. This “air clay” enables me to create detailed surfaces and shapes with dozens of texture applications and then paint, stain or shade it to the wanted impact.
“Rust Expressions 4″ (in situ) – EPS, cement, acrylics, bronze, copper, iron and glass, each and every 30″ x 5″ x 2”
Art, to me, is a type of communication, a discourse with oneself: me with myself, in creating it and then with the viewer in encountering it. In producing a piece of artwork that resonates, that genuinely works, I working experience times of pure joy and relish the possibility to share that so uniquely human second with other individuals.
Mark Rafter invites you to stick to him on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.
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