The Persistence of Dalí

Hi Everyone ❤

This post is a continuation of a series of posts I have written about my sculptures Today I would love to share with you my third sculpture and the great artist who inspired me a lot in Art; That‘s Salvador Dalí.

Who is Salvador Dalí ?

Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, 1st Marquis of Dalí de Púbol (11 May 1904 – 23 January 1989), known professionally as Salvador Dalí), was a prominent Spanish surrealist born in Figueres, Catalonia, Spain. Dalí was a skilled draftsman, best known for the striking and bizarre images in his surrealist work. His painterly skills are often attributed to the influence of Renaissance masters. His best-known work, The Persistence of Memory, was completed in August 1931. Dalí's expansive artistic repertoire included film, sculpture, and photography, at times in collaboration with a range of artists in a variety of media.
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In 2016, when I started creating my own art, I spent time to research more about the different types of art and leading artists. Before, I had heard about some famous artists, but did not know too much detail about their work or their background. When I came across Dali’s work, I was really impressed by his genial talent, unique character and all his surreal paintings. I loved all his artworks, specially the masterpiece The Persistence of Memory.

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I read everything I could find about him and one of most impressive things from him was a table he created to compare other artists and himself, he gave a score to each artists on the table for various characteristics. In my view, only an unique genius can do this.

(I couldn’t find the source of this pic! I had saved it a while ago)

Creating The Persistence of Dali

One day an idea come to my mind and I sketched it out on my sketch book in the scribble style.The sketch shows Dali’s face melting with his clock. I call it “The persistence of Dali”. I feel that his artwork may have stayed in my subconscious long enough, to inspire this vision.

So when I was thinking about the next concept for my third sculpture, I remembered this idea that I had sketched and decided to make it into a sculpture, so I can touch Dali in 3D and feel a real connection with him and his art. I wanted to make his portrait look like a caricature to make his unique eyes, nose, mouth, beard and hair have more prominence. I feel like everything from him is never ordinary. All his great ideas and concepts come from deep inside his imagination, an expression of his extraordinary character.

These are all the tools that I used to create the sculpture: red clay, rotating platform, bamboo knives and sticks

I used the stick to make the clay more compact, making sure there are no air pockets inside

Then I started to make the general shape of the sculpture.

In the next step,I put more details on the sculpture. Every detail can be modified and may need to be constantly changed to make sure they work together with new details that are added.

The drawing that I was working from only described one perspective; the front view of his face. I continued to work with all other perspectives as I added the details to the sculpture.

When creating the sculpture I felt very happy. Touching clay and creating something that was just an idea from my mind into something that exists in reality is very exciting. My friend captured that joyful moment for me.

In the final steps, I refined the sculpture with the bamboo knife, using it to smooth the skin and to make the texture on his eyebrow and hair. After I finished the final touches, I let the sculpture dry for about a week. I had to make sure it wasn’t too dry for glazing and casting in the wood oven.

You can watch the video to see all the perspectives and detail on this sculpture

Before the sculpture was glazed and cast in the oven, I decided to make it thicker so it’s easier to see the face. To be honest, I’m not really happy with the glazed color, but it’s not easy to control the colors as you want due to the process used.

Here is the final sculpture, The Persistence of Dali.

Exhibiting The Persistence of Dali

Luckily my friend suggested my sculptures to the Fine Arts Association, then they select two of them, The persistence of Dali and my fifth sculpture, Born from Stone.

The curator team from the Fine Art Museum in Ho Chi Minh city curated The Persistence of Dali for their exhibition. I feel like some of the seeds I planted on my art journey came to fruition. This gave me a great opportunity to meet and learn from many successful and established Vietnamese artists.

The sculpture, The Persistence of Dali was my expression of admiration of this great artist. It is my way of sending him my gratitude and appreciation even though we are not in the same time and space. I feel very lucky to have found Art and to have the opportunity to pursue my passion. It has ignited a flame that I will carry for the rest of my life.

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You can see more of my sculpture in my series here:
FLY WITH ME - A Mind Liberated
MOTHER SEA

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Thank you all for taking time to read this post, I hope you enjoyed it. It gives me great joy to be able to share my experiences with you all, exclusively here on the steem blockchain. If you enjoyed reading this, please share it with others by resteeming this post.
❤
@livvu