Could You Hang a Coat on This Art?

Coathanger Gorilla

David Mach, a sculpture and installation artist, creates art from wire coathangers.

The way he makes these is to first make a mold of the figure and then create a hard plastic form around which the coathangers can be formed.

Portrait of the Artist's Brother

On his website he says, "When I have ideas I want to make them, and not just some of them, but all of them. As a result of that my sculpture covers a multitude of sins. I like to work in as many different materials as possible. It's no understatement to say I am a materials junkie - jumping from highly-painted realistic cast fibreglass pieces to sculpture with coathangers, to a thatched barn roof laced with fibre-optics to designs for camera obscures (or at least the buildings to house them) and layouts for parks."

Coathanger Hooker

He has also created a piece called Spaceman, which is based on an image of Neil Armstrong when he landed on the moon. Every hour it rises slowly up and down inside a glass atrium.

Coathanger Spaceman

"The work is made up from hundreds of standard metal coathangers, welded to each other around a plastic positive later removed, and then silver nickel plated. What does it cost to send a man into space, to make him walk on the moon? I am fascinated by the effort of that, the science, the brainpower, the sheer physical power of the rockets. Billions of dollars spent over decades, invested in the best minds, and here I am, using the cheapest, throwaway nothing object, a coathanger, to portray that."

Coathanger Rabbit Stew

Imagine the time involved to create these works of art. He uses everyday materials that we don't even think twice about. If only I could do this with the thousands of coathangers I have laying around.

David also creates works of art from matchsticks, such as this:

Matches Elvis

You can see more of his interesting and creative work at: davidmach.com. 

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