Arts Design

NEW METAL ART ALCHEMY

Photo: Gil Bruvel. “The Wind.”

Check out this cutting edge collection we’ve gathered of beautiful metal art.

When we experience metal, it is usually hard and strong, sometimes shiny, sometimes rough. Of course we know it can melt and bend, among other properties. But when artists make metals flow, drape, print, transform, and float in the air, they perform a form of creative alchemy.

Photo: Gil Bruvel. “Never Ending.”

Stainless steel ribbons unfurl, in parallel, as if blown by the wind or softly streamed by water currents, organically forming faces and figures. These incredible metal sculptures by Gil Bruvel are meant to reveal “an essential underlying fluidity that exists simultaneously within the physical, quantum, and metaphoric realms.” Metal becomes ephemeral. These pieces move us -- at once, setting us adrift and drawing us in to the emotion pouring out of Bruvel’s subjects.

Photo: Gil Bruvel. “Flowing.”

The works above are all part of the artist’s most recent Flow series.

Photo: Courtesy of Luxury in Progress. Euphony.

Everyday ball chain becomes otherworldly in the hands of the artists at Ball-Nogues Studio. Their recent installation, entitled Euphony, was constructed using nearly one million linear feet of metal ball chain. It was unveiled a few months ago at Nashville’s Music City Center.

Photo: Courtesy of Allison Porterfield.

The catenary stainless steel ball chains curves and swoops, forming fluid shapes inside shapes, with shimmering patterns and colors.

Photo: Courtesy of Ball Nogues Studio. Euphony.

It is a translucent three-dimensional painting, as much as it is a sculpture. Depending on where you stand, the 1141 multi-colored chains may appear as a hard-edged geometric form or blur like a cosmic cloud.

Photo: Courtesy of Neil Dawson. Horizons.

We are wonderfully fooled again by metal magic. This time, a landscape becomes a cartoon, as realized by sculptor Neil Dawson in his sculpture entitled Horizons, recently installed at Gibbs Farm, a 1000-acre sculpture park in New Zealand.

Dawson’s piece, sculpted from aluminum and stainless steel, stands 15m high and 36m long, as it appears to float in the breeze, as if it is about to lift off its hilltop mount.

Video: Courtesy of Neil Dawson. FANFARE.

This video shows how Dawson’s sculpture, "Fanfare," will look when it is installed at the northern entrance to Christchurch, NZ, in 2014. The city of Sydney originally commissioned this piece in 2005 for its New Year celebrations.

Photo: Courtesy of Neil Dawson.

I saw it suspended off Sydney Harbour Bridge, where it remained for three weeks, before being taken down and gifted to Christchurch. Fanfare is 24 meters high, 20 meters across, and weighs 25 tons. It includes 360 pinwheel fans, 1-meter in diameter, which spin in the wind.

Photo: Courtesy of Neil Dawson. Feather from Afar, 2012, International Finance Center, Pudong, Shanghai, China

Dawson transformed his metal into another light and airy form in Feather from Afar, recently installed at the International Finance Center, in Pudong, Shanghai, China.

Photo: Courtesy of Neil Dawson. Feather from Afar, 2012.

As if it fluttered down from the sky, after being shed by a giant bird, Dawson gets every curve and every tufted slice exactly right.

Photo: Courtesy of Mise en Piscine. Piece by Huang Yong Ping. Ressort.

“Ressort” is a 170-foot-long sculpture of a snake skeleton by Chinese artist Huang Yong Ping. Constructed of aluminum and stainless steel, the imposing sculpture is suspended above an indoor reflecting pool at Queensland Art Gallery in Brisbane, Australia.

"Ressort" is French for "spring," and can also mean energy or resilience, which this sculpture beautifully embodies.The coiled snake or dragon, a central figure in Chinese mythology since ancient times, is traditionally associated with water.

Photo: Courtesy of Queensland Art Gallery. Piece by Huang Yong Ping. Ressort.

Because of its enormous scale, Ressort reminds us of the dinosaur skeletons we see at natural history museums. According to Huang: “What is huge in one context is tiny in another.” The sharp pointed shapes of the snake’s ribs are perfect expressions of metal beauty.

"Ressort" is currently on display in the Queensland Art Gallery (QAG) Watermall.

Photo: Vik Muniz. Hummingbird.

When trash is transformed into art, it makes the universe smile doubly wide, we think. Here, Brazilian artist Vik Muniz created three new works made from gold scrap metal. Muniz, known for trash-based artworks, was featured in the 2010 documentary Waste Land, directed by Lucy Walker. The film shows Muniz's work on one of the world's largest garbage dumps, Jardim Gramacho, on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro.

Photo: Vik Muniz. Goldfish.