Hammer to wood, Marcus Levine’s nail sculptures

Marcus Levine puts nails to the wood in his creations and sculptures of the human physique. With the use of hundreds upon thousands of nails, the British artist creates his different pieces after sometimes more than months of work. Each work of art can contain from 15,000 to 200,000 depending on the size and complexity of each individual piece that he creates.

To create each piece, Marcus Levine takes large wooden panels that are hung on the walls. With each panel, he will use a hammer to nail in the individual nails to form the shape he wants for each sculpture. He takes an abstract approach to his different figures, contrasting the smoothness that can be the shape of a human body with the set structure of a nail bed. He started working with nails back in 2004, but he threw his first piece out. Since then, he has taken time to work figuratively with the nails and what he hopes to accomplish with each piece he creates. Major art influences for Marcus Levine include Michelangelo and Auguste Rodin.

Some of Marcus Levine’s most recent work steps away from the figurative sculptures of the human body that he typically creates. The large monumental sculptures balances the senses with the use of tough as well as sight with the way that the light refracts off the piece. Marcus Levine believes that light is necessary component to each sculpture because of how much it can change the viewpoint when it hits the piece from different angles.

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To view more of his work, go here.