Location: United States
The artist was born in Brussels Belgium and emigrated to the United States in 1952. He is a retired geotechnical engineer and university professor who had over 30 years of experience with major infrastructure and building projects in the United States. His professional life allowed him to work with many noted architectural and structural engineering firms, and on a variety of challenging and innovative projects. Of particular interest to the art world, he was on the design teams for new exhibition buildings in New York City for both the world-famous Morgan Library and Whitney Museum of American Art. Upon his retirement in 2013, he developed a keen interest in learning new technologies including microelectronics and 3D printing.
This collection currently consists of over 60 artworks and is an outgrowth of my interests and experience with dissimilar materials, the use of 3D printing technology to produce complex plastic objects, and assembly methods. The approach was to select wood, metals, plastic, and found objects and combine them in such a way as to invoke thought-provoking reactions. Thus, the medium of this work encompasses the range from assemblages to sculptures. It is hoped that in most cases, the artworks will demonstrate both a little bit of wry wit and fanciful unreality.
“Black Noodles in Search of Sauce”
This is one of the more whimsical works in my collection. It is entirely constructed from parts made using a 3D printer. Six tubular segments were arranged and connected to form a stable structure. As a pasta lover, I immediately had a vision of living noodles out of their natural environment and desperate to find a comforting sauce.
This work is simply an exercise in assembling a whimsical black and silver structure. It decided that it had far more windows than it needed so it tried to toss them out. However, the windows did not give up that quickly and decided to stick around a bit longer.
While sifting through my “graveyard” box of scavenged printed circuit boards, I noticed that they had varying shapes. Soon, I began to have a vision of a grotesque body born from these dead boards – sort of an electronic Frankenstein! All I needed were some parts for a brain, eyes, teeth, hands and feet. For those, 3D printing came to the rescue. Finally, I added some flashing LEDs to give it some life. The result was this whimsical artwork.
This piece is a fanciful vision of a boxer defeating his opponent; sort of a Rocky Balboa. I utilized two different sections of aluminum car engine intercooler piping arranged to schematically represent his arms and legs. His boxing gloves consist of two hollow stainless-steel balls. It is an example of simplicity of characterization.
This work represents an attempt to use five dissimilar materials to work in harmony. It is my vision of perhaps an alien civilization where shelter is needed from below rather than above. A colony of clustered yellow beings is arranged high atop a disk like a group of Antarctic penguins trying to keep warm. The disk is the lens of an overhead recessed led kitchen light. Aluminum electronic component heat sinks help instill the alien nature of the subject.
The inspiration for this piece lies in the ability to use 3D-printing for the manufacture of customized connectors. The white ones here made it easy to assemble the open cube structures. Stacking one cube on another reminded me of throwing a pair of blank dice. The large stainless-steel ball serves as a fanciful replacement for the usual dots on dice faces.
In this early work, I simply created a free-form structure using sections of square plastic tubing cut from one of those cheap plastic etagere bookcases popular in the 1970s. After affixing the four stainless-steel balls to cover up the open tube ends, there appeared a vision of someone in the process of sending a bowling ball down an alley.
“Another Definition of Insanity”
Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. I thought of this as I was imagining this artwork. It is sort of a spiral staircase starting with large steps and leading upward with progressively smaller steps until the steps begin getting larger again. Is there any hope of reaching a destination and not feeling exhausted? The work is composed of 3D printed “steps” aligned along a central thin aluminum support tube.
“Too Many Windows”
“Mr. Electrostein”
“The Victorious Boxer”
“Shelter in Place”
“Roll of the Dice”
“The Bowler”
