20 Mind-Blowing Realistic Human Sculptures by Ron Mueck
“Painting and sculpture are very archaic forms. It’s the only thing left in our industrial society where an individual alone can make something with not just his own hands, but brains, imagination, heart maybe.” – Philip Guston
Sculpture is possibly the most visceral of all the art forms. It is a raw and physical act between man and material, and the end product is a creation in three dimensions, rather than the illusion of three dimensions, allowed in mist of the other visual art forms.
Humanity has been producing sculptures since before written history, which is a testament to mankind’s desire to create and express. Western sculpture tradition can be dated back to Ancient Greece, where the great works of classical sculpture have been produced.
But, as we said, sculpture itself is much older than this, and is not limited to Western cultures. Easter Island holds some of the most famous and talked about sculptures, namely the Moai, the giant humanoid statues that, although more recent than the Greek statues, enthrall the imagination with their impressive size and craftsmanship, seeing as they come from a civilization that is widely thought of as being less technologically advanced than the Western ones.
Visual Arts: Hyperrealism
Hyperrealism is one of the most recent movements in visual arts, the phrase being coined in 1973 by Isy Brachot, when he used it to name a major exhibition and catalog at his gallery in Brussels. Seeing as this exhibition and subsequent catalog mostly consisted of works by Photorealist artists, Hyperrealism is considered an off-shoot of Photorealism, creating a “false reality” based on digital photographs.
The movement has its roots in Europe and North America, and has been developing ever since the early 2000’s. It’s main focus is creating tangible works that bend the border between reality and art, by faithfully recreating high-resolution photographs, down to the smallest detail. In sculpture, this leads to amazing, and sometimes disturbing, works of art that depict anything from mundane situations, to important cultural, social or political events.
Typically, hyperrealistic works of art are much larger than the original source material that they are inspired from. The end result is a much more detailed work than the original. This is especially true for sculptures, that end up with much more clarity and detail than the source material.
Another major difference between Hyperrealism and other visual art movements is the implementation of mechanical processes to transfer the original image to the new, desired medium. In sculpture this is achieved by applying polyesters directly on to a human body or mold. After the applying of polyesters, the sculptor than proceeds to add all the intricate details required to create the final product.
About Ron Mueck
There are many amazing Hyperrealist sculptors out there, such as Adam Beane, who also invented a new sculpting material called Cx5, or Carole Feuerman who does sculptures in bronze, resin and marble, but in this article we will be focusing on the works of Australian born, UK based sculptor Ron Mueck.
His career began in 1979, when he started working on the television program Shirl’s Neighborhood, creating voiced and operated puppets. Among the puppets he created for the show are the much loved Greenfinger the Garden Gnome, Claude the Crow and Stanley the Snake.
The show ran from 1979 to 1984, and it was during this time that he got noticed by Muppet creator, Jim Henson, who approached him to work on two of his classic projects: The Labyrinth, starring David Bowie and Jennifer Connelly, and his short lived 1988 series, The Storyteller.
Mueck later moved to London, where he founded his own company, with which he started making photo-realistic props and animatronics for commercials and advertisements. It’s during this period that he became increasingly unsatisfied with his works, as he was creating them for being filmed or photographed from certain angles, so as not to see the mess of construction. This lead to him deciding to pursue a career in fine art.
In 1996 he began collaborating with Paula Rego to produce small figures for a tableau she was exhibiting at the Hayward Gallery. It was in this way that he met Charles Saatchi, co-founder of the Saatchi & Saatchi advertising agency, who greatly appreciated his work, and soon began collecting and commissioning his work.
Shortly after, he produced his first famous work, Dead Dad, a sculpture of his dead father, for which he used his own own hair to for adding the details.
Mueck’s trademark style consists of faithfully recreating the human body, down to the finest detail, but playing around with the scale, so as to produce sculptures that make you feel slightly uneasy and awestruck. This is, basically, the “Uncanny Valley” effect, and he masters it superbly in all of his works.
From 1999 to 2001 he was Associate Artist at the London National Gallery, and during this time he created more of seminal works, including Swaddled Baby, Mother and Child and Pregnant Woman. As you can tell from the works’ names, the artist has a particular interest in the themes of motherhood and infancy, and the overarching theme of parenthood, in general.
Since then, the artist has been slowly but surely gaining more and popularity. In 2006 he had his first solo exhibitions. One was at the Royal Scottish Academy Building, during the Edinburgh Festival which ended on October the 1st. His second exhibition came shortly after, in November at the Brooklyn Museum, where his works were on display until February of 2007.
2007 proved to be a busy year for Ron Mueck. Following the success of his two rapid-fire exhibitions in Edinburgh and New York, he went on to have exhibitions in Canada, at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, then back to the USA where he brought his works to The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in Texas, and then finally at The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
His most recent exhibition saw him bringing his works to Latin America for the first time. Only having just recently ended, his exhibition at the Fundación Proa in Buenos Aires, the capital city of Argentina, showcased some of his most famous works, including Dead Dad, Couple Under Umbrella, Boy, and In Bed.
Now, if you’ve never had the opportunity to go see one of his exhibitions, it’s time we show you just what you’ve been missing out on, and even if you have visited it, we’re sure you are going to love seeing them again.
That wraps up our list of 20 mind-blowing sculptures from Ron Mueck. We are positively in awe of the skill and mastery of this modern master, and we are pretty sure you are too. Let us know what you think of Mueck’s terrific sculptures, in the comment section below.
Learning Approach.
Amazing work