Screws may seem inconspicuous. Most of us use them to fix objects. What else can small screws do? Artist Bruce Mackley uses thousands of screws to complete a series of paintings. The large-scale 3D portrait and the effects of different shades make the work both a painting and a sculpture!
The process of completing a huge screw painting is not only tedious but also challenging, because Mackleys largest work "Descent" used more than 20,000 screws, fixed one by one by hand according to the depth of the painting. , which also represents an astonishing amount of time spent on a piece of work. It usually takes hundreds of hours to place and fine-tune the screws. After constant tightening and loosening of the screws, the desired tone and shade can be achieved. From a close look, it looks like a piece of screws with different depths, but from a distance, the combination of the screws forms a picture! From the side, you can even see the 3D effect of the picture.
Because the painting is entirely made of screws, weighs more than 350 pounds, and is 7 feet tall, Mackley not only made a huge easel to display the work, but also built a special trolley to move the work from manufacturing to completion and exhibition. It’s really a huge project!
Before the work "Descent", Mackleys first work was actually "Turning Away", but it was also completed using more than 9,000 screws. From this work, he discovered his joy in painting screws.
At the same time, the uneven screw paintings can also be touched, allowing blind people to appreciate the paintings through touch, adding more interactive possibilities to art. Although industrial mosaic-style paintings composed of screws are a creative material that is not often used, screws are no longer boring, but full of tension and vitality!
