Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Marilyn Minter - Gold meets Girl

I've long been a fan of silver and nothing's going to change that, but recently I've been seduced by Gold. Why is that, not too sure, but it may well have something to do with the fact that it's never featured in my jewelery collection and has always been a favourite on my walls.


Silver and diamonds are sexy together. Possibly the idea of the gold leafed mosaic mirror that I handmade 15 years ago now becoming a feature of my blog banner and the fact that those mosaic tiles cost a mint per square metre, may well have been staring me in the face daily and imprinting their subliminal message with me. I have had flirtations with gold leaf when I handmade and sculpted this Elle Decor mirror a while back. So now its time to give gold some gush.


My son's just painted his skateboarding helmet in gold artist paint on a black matt background. It looks great and seeing how shiny the gold came up got me thinking of getting the gold out again.


When I first saw the Elle Decor mirror I just knew I had to have one, so I set one in a plaster of paris mould as the vague shape above. Let it set and air dry a couple of weeks so it would stand a vigorous sanding. The shaping took a week or so of subtle and gentle carving, none of the curves are symmetrical, but that's half the fun. I gold leafed the whole thing and it absolutely glimmered. The sea air has left its muted sheen on the surface. As you can see it's time to give it a new leafing.


The pictures I've coupled up this article with are about artist extraordinaire Marilyn Minter, whose unusual experimentation with gold has taken the fashion world by storm. She was recently commissioned for a mammouth Jimmy Choo photo shoot where shoes and handbags were treated to the brush's daliance with dawbs of gold. Marilyn has also taken gold to the level Goldfinger did in the Bond movie. Take a look at these seductive shots. Read more about Marilyn here.


Marilyn Minter (born 1948) is an American artist currently living and working in New York City. Marilyn Minter has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 2005, the Center for Contemporary Art, Cincinnati, OH in 2009, La Conservera, Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, Ceutí/Murcia, Spain in 2009, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, OH in 2010 and the Deichtorhallen in Hamburg, Germany in 2011. Her video Green Pink Caviar was exhibited in the lobby of the MoMA for over a year, and was also shown on digital billboards on Sunset Boulevard in LA, and the Creative Time MTV billboard in Times Square, New York.

She has been included in numerous group exhibitions in museums all over the world. In 2006, Marilyn Minter was included in the Whitney Biennial, and in a collaboration with Creative Time she installed billboards all over Chelsea in New York city. In the spring of 2011 Minter had a solo exhibition at Team Gallery, New York. In 2009, she had a solo exhibit at Regen Projects, Los Angeles.

Minter currently teaches in the MFA department at the School of Visual Arts in New York and has an upcoming solo show at Salon 94, New York, opening October 28, 2011.  So if you're in New York or thinking of being there in the next few weeks, make sure you visit Salon 94 for this intimate exhibition.


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