Link Addage

Okay, I have finally gotten around to doing my homework and I figured out how to put this stupid link thing on my blog (by the way it was super easy once I used my eyes and looked around). My homework was to make a link on my blog to a site of an artist whom I like and then write about them. I chose this artist Ron Mueck, he is a wonderful realist artist who makes sculptures the are bigger than life size or smaller, I am inspired by both. He hand paints his works, even down to the veins that would be seen through the flesh and punches the hair (usually acrylic fibre) into the scalp. Mueck uses silicone, latex, fibreglass, acrylic paint and acrylic fibre. I couldn't find much about the concept of his work, I found out where he grew up, who his parents are, and what he did for the first part of his career life. Ron Mueck was born in Melbourne, Australia, 1958, his parents were toy makers and for 15 years he made models and puppets for kids shows. Later he went on to make models for commercial photography, then he decided that 'photography kills sculpture' and decided to sculpt and exhibit his work on his own terms.
I like Mueck's work because it is so direct, it has power, even if the scale is small. The power in his work has to do with the fact they are so real looking, nothing false sometimes too real. My favorite works at the moment are Dead Dad (1996-97) which is a small figure of his naked Father on the floor and it is the only work where he uses his own hair, Mother and child (2002) which is a woman who looks ragged and exhausted after just giving birth to a child, the baby is still attached by the umbilical cord resting on the woman's stomach and they look at each other. These works are seem so powerful to me, somewhat shocking but full of emotion and real, maybe hyper-real (like emotions can be) and unromantic like life can be. Just beautiful and stunning.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/up-dyn/content/gallery/2005/12/29/GA2005122900888-index-frame.htm?startat=1

http://www.paintalicious.org/2007/09/14/ron-mueck-hyper-realist-sculptor/