Robert L. Peters

27 March 2011

Screw-art portraits…

Laguna Beach, California

Meet German-born Andrew Myers, one of the most patient modern-day sculptors around. He goes through a multi-step process to create incredible works of art you almost have to see (or touch) to believe. He starts with a base plywood panel, and then places pages of a phone book on top (he prefers to use pages from his subjects’ local area). He then draws out a face and pre-drills 8,000 to 10,000 holes, by hand.

As he drills in the screws, Myers doesn’t rely on any computer software to guide him—he figures it out as he goes along. “For me, I consider this a traditional sculpture and all my screws are at different depths,” he says. One of the most challenging parts is getting rid of the flat drawing underneath because he then has to paint over each of the screw heads, individually, so that in the end, the sculpture looks like an actual portrait. See more works on Myers’s website here.

“Most people are drawn to the portraits because they have something different about them (from a distance especially). Seeing them in person is a whole different feel than seeing the photograph. They have a sense of depth that the photo can’t capture.”—Andrew Myers

Thanks to my Circle colleague Adrian Shum for the link…

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