Wire Mesh Portraits

June 1, 2012 10:24 AM

Isaac Cordal sculpts faces in wire mesh colanders and then uses light to project the portraits on the ground.
posted by OmieWise (13 comments total)

creepy
posted by zeoslap at 10:33 AM on June 1, 2012

Neat!

But his method of making the stuff is weird. If the photo is anything to go by, it looks like a crazy amount of difficult, fiddly work.

I can't help but think it'd be a lot easier to sculpt a mold -- or even just do a lifecast, since they're all faces with eyes closed -- and then just press the strainer against it.

But then, I'm lazy like that.
posted by Sys Rq at 10:52 AM on June 1, 2012

The shadow shapes remind me of un-textured 3D models.. interesting.
posted by FatherDagon at 11:33 AM on June 1, 2012

I'm reminded of 4-D ultrasound images of babies in utero.
posted by Dragonness at 11:37 AM on June 1, 2012

If the photo is anything to go by, it looks like a crazy amount of difficult, fiddly work.

I doubt it. Having never tried this, I'd say it'd take me an hour or two. It'd be much more difficult to cram his friends' faces through a 6" circle.
posted by cmoj at 12:07 PM on June 1, 2012

I can't wait until the first colander ends up in a thrift store.

"Jesus, Mother of Mary! In a COLANDER!!! Quick, get it to eBay!"
posted by Curious Artificer at 12:20 PM on June 1, 2012 [1 favorite]

After reading the post below, I thought he "sculpts feces in wire mesh...." I'm very glad I misread that.
posted by robstercraw at 2:03 PM on June 1, 2012

Doesn't he realise he could simply hit them REALLY hard in the face with the mesh wire thingy and achieve the same result - bending nicely around their faces with the impact?
posted by greenhornet at 2:12 PM on June 1, 2012

That only works with frying pans.
posted by cmoj at 2:12 PM on June 1, 2012 [3 favorites]

Cool, lovely, eerie, lo-tech and diy all rolled into one post. I love these. Thanks for posting this.
posted by marsha56 at 7:17 PM on June 1, 2012 [1 favorite]

Huh! That works a lot better than I would have guessed. And all this time I've been using colanders to separate liquids from solids, like some kind of idiot.
posted by Uppity Pigeon #2 at 7:36 PM on June 1, 2012 [1 favorite]

There is some artist here in LA who does something similar, but focusing on an entire body rather than a face with features, and with an unframed piece of wire mesh. He goes crumple crumple crumple really quickly (I've seen him do this live), and you look at the crumpled wire and think it's garbage, but then you look at the shadow and it is amazing. Like this guy's brain works really differently sort of amazing. Anybody have any idea who I'm talking about? I've forgotten his name...
posted by queensissy at 9:47 PM on June 1, 2012

They look like death masks.
posted by Scram at 10:03 PM on June 1, 2012 [1 favorite]