Studio Sunday: Ron Mueck
Today’s Studio Sunday features the workspace of London-based sculptor Ron Mueck. Mueck’s hyper-realistic sculptures are made with synthetic materials such as fiberglass, silicon, and resin. This artist began his career working as a sculptor and puppeteer on children’s shows, but soon turned his attention to being a full-time artist.
While his sculptures are often very large in scale, Mueck frequently works with very small tools, for example, inserting individual hairs, or creating realistic-looking wrinkles in a face. I imagine the artist’s studio is packed with very fine sculpting tools.
Mueck’s studio looks suitably messy for working with synthetic materials such as fiberglass. In addition to the sculpting itself, Mueck paints and adds details such as clothing and linens to most of his sculptures. He must have a wide array of very tiny brushes with which to paint details such as pores and skin imperfections. I can see a few of these in the bottom image, sitting behind some of the maquettes. With works in progress laying around I imagine this studio would be pretty creepy at night!
For each of his realistic sculptures, Mueck begins with a clay maquette which he uses to accurately determine the shape and details. Perhaps the table seen in the picture below is where Mueck sculpts these clay drafts. I also like all the faces that Mueck has on the wall above this workspace, as if his previous sculptures are watching over him as he creates new ones.
