David Mach’s incredible sculpture, The Devil, is made entirely of matches. It was part of his exhibition “Precious Light: King James Bible – A Celebration 1611-2011” at the City Art Centre in Edinburgh, Scotland.
In an act that was both performative and transformative, David set his sculpture ablaze to create something new and remarkable. The end result was a charred sculpture that looked similar but felt completely different. For those fortunate to witness the transformation, the final artwork is even more startling and impactful.
Below you will find a chronological recount of this fascinating process. Be sure to watch the video at the bottom of the post. Not only do you get to see the work set ablaze, but David provides an interview as well.
First spotted by scorecardup on Reddit
Artist David Mach
Being a sculptor leads everything I do. Every project I take on starts from that point.
I believe that an artist must be an ideasmonger responding to all kinds of physical location, social and political environments, to materials, to processes,to timescales and budgets.
I also believe that sculpture just about encompasses everything – a painting can be a sculpture, a TV ad can be a sculpture, a dance, a performance, a film, a video – all of thse kinds of art and many more can be sculpture.
When I have ideas I want to make them, and not just some of them, but all of them. As a result of that my sculpture covers a multitude of sins. I like to work in as many different materials as possible. It’s no understatement to say I am a materials junkie – jumping from highly-painted realistic cast fibreglass pieces to sculpture with coathangers, to a thatched barn roof laced with fibre-optics to designs for camera obscuras (or at least the buildings to house them) and layouts for parks.
Recently, collage has had a huge influence on my sculpture. I spend so much time on collage, looking at, sorting out, re-arranging, and sticking thousands of images a week that ideas for sculpture will pop into my head whole, complete with a list of materials to make them with and a take on the different environments, museums and galleries they will inhabit.
The sculpture you will see in this section covers a lot of figurative work, made from a variety of materials, Scrabble pieces, dominoes, coathangers, heads from matches, fibreglass installations on ships and performance outside in the street, but you will have to jump from heading to heading to get the full range of my sculpture.
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