Easter holiday or not. Today we take a small lesson: according to Oxford Dictionaries a mosaic
is
“a picture or pattern produced by arranging together small pieces of stone, tile, glass, etc.”
This definition might be quite narrow. But what I like about it is the word “etc.” It stands for “et cetera” or “and so on”. And that leaves room for everything, for unusual material.
There are a number of artists who use such material: plastic cups, pens, Coke cans. Most of the times, it is recycled material. I assume that very few of these artists are aware that they basically make mosaic art. And that what they do has a long tradition. Of course, technology and material are different, but we also have given up to go shopping by horse-drawn wagons, haven’t we?
In my new series “Groutless Mosaics” I will present you some of these artists. Here is No. 1.
He binds together thousands of pencils with rubber bands and creates amazing works of art. For an exhibition, Uribe used 1,500 shoes and 25,000 shoelaces to create a collection of animals. Including a cow, a zebra and a duck.
Federico Uribe was already a world-renowned painter, when he started at the age of 45 to create art from everyday objects. The artist says of himself that he wants to create a new nature from its own resources. One might think that he wishes to do a statement to the responsible use of natural sources or to put our consumer society in question. But that’s not it. He just wants to make beautiful art and make people feel something.
Uribe studied art at the University of Los Andes in Bogota. In 1988 he went for a master’s program to New York. The artist is a real globetrotter. He has lived in Cuba, Mexico, Russia and England and now in Miami.
Further information
Website Federico Uribe
Video: Federico Uribe, Pelicruise Film Group
Picture: Federico Uribe “Zentimental” by sebastiem
