Jonty Hurwitz is a man of contradictions; as well as being an artist, he’s also a red-in-tooth capitalist who co-founded Wonga, the high-tech, micro-loan company that charges an eye-watering 4,214% APR interest.
Money aside, it’s his sculpture I’m interested in. Jonty specialises in anamorphosis – an artistic style that features distorted projection or perspective that requires the viewer to use special devices or to occupy a specific vantage point to reconstitute the image.
His variation on this theme begins with a scan of the subject, which is carefully distorted with powerful algorithms and sheer processing power, then delicately fabricated.
The technique of using a mirrored cylinder to reveal an undistorted image has a long history in painting, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen it in sculpture. And given the complexity required to render the distorted version in 3D space, I’m not surprised…
Anyway, financial parasite or not, the man knows how to make an impressive piece of art:
Mighty morphin’
25/01/2013 by Jamie
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[…] picture works off a similar principle to Jonty Hurwitz’s anamorphic sculptures. But where his sculptures look warped and unintelligible until you see them reflected in the […]