Andrew Myers

Most people are drawn to the portraits because they have something different about them (from a distance especially). Seeing them in person is a whole different feel than seeing the photograph. They have a sense of depth that the photo can’t capture.” – Andrew Myers

I had to investigate when I came across Andrew Myers, a local artist from Laguna Beach, CA and his "screw portraits". His work reminded me of my brother Pierce.... and his "penny project" in college when he glued hundreds of pennies onto a wood board and then painted them individually to create a portrait of Buddy Holly. All I could think was " this took a ton of work, time, and energy". This is likely the reason I'm drawn to Myers' 3-D craftsmanship and ability to create artwork with hardware. He starts his pieces with a wood board, draws the portrait, grids his lines, and begins screwing thousands of screws onto the board and finishes off with paint. These works are super cool. Enjoy!

Modern Met met with Myers for a quick interview. Here is what he had to say:

How does this type of sculpture differ from your usual work?
These pieces are definitely a departure from my normal artwork. For years I had been sculpting in bronze, doing figurative, narrative types of work. The screw art was born mostly because I was burnt out on the narrative work, but also because I'm always searching for a "better" sculpture. It has been hard for me to stick to one style of work as I always tend to find something more interesting. In fact, before I got the exposure on the screw art, I had considered taking a break from that to pursue something else.

What do you hope others will get out of these pieces?
When other people look at this work, I hope they can see the amount of thought and work that went into each piece. I feel I have used everything I've learned over the past decade, including sculpture, painting, construction etc, to create something that I had never seen before.

What's next?
Right now I am in a studio transition, so I haven't had much time to work on the art side of things. However, I have some great plans for the future, which include plenty of screws and large scale sculptures (hopefully public art).

To visit his website, click on the title of this post
www.andrewmyersart.com
*images from ModernMet