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Allen Laing creates a series of mixed media sculptural inventions Article Image

Allen Laing creates a series of mixed media sculptural inventions

Posted on 11 August 2016

South African artist Allen Laing creates highly crafted artistic 'inventions' that perform interesting tasks. His interactive artworks made from everyday objects function as a new means to execute menial tasks, such as listening, seeing, smoking and taking a leak.

Laing graduated from the University of Pretoria with a Fine Art degree and specialises in mixed media sculptures with machine aesthetic. He is currently in residence as the workshop manager at 58MAKERSWORKSHOP across from Nirox in the Cradle of Humankind. He is also one of the founding members of Found Collective, a collective for collaboration and promotion of the arts in Pretoria. His works explore the loss of culture and ritual in our mass produced consumerist society.

Laing's sculptures often features everyday objects that are made for human interaction such as furniture and wood into funny wearables. He creates works based on his own personal viewpoint often using his own body as the 'mould' for his artworks to tell of his own experiences. For example, he blends bronze casts of the back of his leg, with worn chair legs and found wood to create a strange-looking mask.

He creates artworks that play with everyday frustrations. He explores ways in which we can respond to the daily struggles we face. Through a ritual of construction and reconstruction, he often builds, breaks apart, reassembles and reworks his sculptures until they are intuitively completed.