"The thing is with inspiration, is that you never get any warning before it hits you…”
Celebrating F1's GOAT...
GOAT #1, a tribute to Michael. The greatest F1 driver of all time... is a very subjective and even emotive thing. With it being impossible to compare drivers in different cars let alone different eras, at best, it could be a series of generational GOAT’s. So here is my opening gambit, until very recently the most dominant and decorated driver of all time, a 7 time world champion with 5 of those back to back for Ferrari... Michael Schumacher.
A master of finding speed over 1 lap and in the wet, and setting new benchmarks for professionalism and fitness. A savagely focused competitor and winning machine, and like all who could be described as such, occasionally the subject of controversy. Universally admired, respected, feared. A racing icon tragically injured through leisure pursuit, unbelievable given the level of jeopardy experienced and mostly sidestepped throughout his illustrious career. This point hitting hard with me personally, my athletically talented brother suffering a severe brain injury three decades ago in what should have been an innocuous accident, resulting in a lifetime of care. Sometimes a dose of humour is the only way to cope...
My life-size 700lb bronze effigy to celebrate Michael Schumacher was unveiled at Arte Veloce, my Italian automotive themed show with Concours Club for Art Basel Miami. As with all of my sculpture work, it was a 20 month project based on reality for the ultimate detail; a 3D scan of Michaels 2002 race suit, one renowned victory celebration, and one four legged friend that I’m really struggling to think of a name for, other than Billy. We previously trained and 3D captured a rearing stunt horse, and later installed the rig on a farm to re-create Lamborghini’s bull.... but neither could prepare for the mayhem of six goats in a pen and 160 cameras. Pandemonium, and not everything survived.
#KeepFighting
I've always thought in 3D, I guess my painting style is testament to that, but it's obvious to me far further back than that. My entire childhood spent playing (learning...) with Lego is where I attribute much of my foundation as an artist, and I still have a felt tip collage I won a prize for aged 5, which is multi layered. At school it was pottery and woodwork that I most revelled in, then at University studying aerospace engineering, again it was the practical side. And to be honest, right now, sculpture is where my mind spends most of its time. The challenges and the costs with sculpture are exponentially greater... but also the scope of possibilities and power of the result with a much greater physical presence, should I get it right. Everything I create sculpturally, I can see in my mind’s eye from the outset, I wait for that vivid 'Eureka moment' of realisation before embarking on anything, have to be totally clear what I'm working towards, then the 'only' challenge is to bring that vision to reality. Based on three-dimensional motion capture and using the rarest of assets for hyper realism and dynamic, and a new improved take on what is fundamentally a very traditional output – 3D capture and augmented-reality modelling translated into the age-old tradition of lost wax bronze casting. And where sculpture has led me to, in a relatively short space of time, is mind blowing. Creating sculpture just feels like a legacy that is so much more permanent than paint, created from near indestructible materials that will be around for much much longer than I will be, and celebrating subjects often so revered and indeed worshipped, often by those who are so close to them... is a difficult thing to get your head around, to be responsible for creating something of that magnitude. I may well have already created my most renowned work – indeed although I will never rest from furthering what I do, I think that's fairly likely actually. But then I never saw that career defining epiphany coming either, that led me to create Senna 'Eau Rouge'. Inadvertently at first, I appear to have carved my own niche and a renewed self-styled role to celebrate the history of F1, in life-size bronze. Each statue is around 12 months from concept to realisation, and is created in three limited edition scales: Life-size, 60% (F1 wind tunnel development scale) and 20%.