Nathan Sawaya
While most sculptors use marble, clay, or wood, Nathan Sawaya uses the popular plastic toy LEGO. Easy to see why we adults still love this toy, most of us played with LEGO when we were kids, you build little houses and little zoos with little animals and little people and then you tear it down and build something else, you can almost build anything with those tiny plastic bricks. Maybe that’s what makes Sawaya’s art fascinating, we all can relate to it and perhaps reminds us of the little kid we still have inside of us, even if you are an adult. Sawaya’s art has been featured in many exhibitions and museums and he himself had been invited to popular media shows such as Jimmy Kimmel Live, Late Night with David Letterman, and Discovery Channel’s Mythbuster just to mention a few.
Worthy of note that Sawaya primarily uses the classic rectangular bricks, staying true to the LEGO spirit, instead of the more complex-shaped pieces like the little wheels, gears, triangular shaped pieces, and other gimmicks and devices that you might find in LEGO set.
Indiefonica: Why did you choose lego as your medium?
Nathan Sawaya: I have sculpted with different, more traditional media, such as clay and wire, but LEGO bricks are something that I enjoy working with because people relate to my sculptures on a different level. People can enjoy a marble statue, but most folks don’t have large slabs of marble in their homes. When people see my LEGO sculptures, they can relate to it because they have played with LEGO bricks at some point. They can connect to this toy, and are amazed what can be done with it.
Indiefonica: You were a lawyer in your previous profession. How did you make thetransition from a full time lawyer to a lego artist?
Nathan Sawaya: I used to be a corporate lawyer in New York City. After a long day at the law firm, I would come home and create something. It was almost therapeutic for me. To come home and create was therapy for my mind.
A few years ago I challenged myself to build a large scale sculpture out of LEGO bricks. After a positive response, I started working on other large sculptures, and soon put photos of them on my website, brickartist.com. Soon thereafter I was getting commissions from all over the world and I realized that I wanted to be an artist more than I wanted to be a lawyer. Like so many small businesses, what started out as a hobby became more and more of a full time job. When I got so many hits on my site on one day that it crashed, I realized I had a viable business. It was time to leave the law firm and become a full time artist.
As you may know, New York corporate attorneys work over 80 hours per week. These days, I’m working more hours, but having more fun.
Indiefonica: What you're doing with lego bricks sounds like a lot of fun, does itmake you feel like a kid again when you're doing it? or is it just work?
Nathan Sawaya: I am following my passion, so it does not feel like work. Besides, I usually create sculptures that are fun. At least fun for me. Once I created a life-size dinosaur skeleton. Fun, right? It’s currently touring Australia.
Indiefonica: You often modeled your lego art pieces after the male figure, andrarely female, for example grasp, green, yellow, why?
Nathan Sawaya: I’ve done sculptures of both female and male human forms. One of my more popular female pieces is a swimmer, face-down, swimming through a sea of blue bricks. In The Art of the Brick touring exhibit, I’ve not included any exact replicas of recognizable people, so that the viewer can imagine themselves as the art. So I hope when people see the swimmer, they imagine what it would be like to swim through LEGO.
Indiefonica: What are some of the limitations when choosing lego as your medium?
Nathan Sawaya: I use primarily the rectangular bricks. These are the same bricks I had as a child. Some would see limitations in only using little rectangles, but I think that is part of the magic of LEGO. I appreciate the cleanliness of the medium. The right angles. The distinct lines. As so often in life, it is a matter of perspective. Up close, the shape of the brick is distinctive. But from a distance, those right angles and distinct lines change to curves.
Indiefonica: Your Conan O'Brian piece is amazing, why do you choose to depict him as a super hero?
Nathan Sawaya: He asked for it. The Conan superhero, is Conan's comic alter ego. He commissioned the piece.
Indiefonica: What are some of your ambitions for your next work, you’ve done artinterpretation, tv personalities, animals, etc. what would you like to do next?
Nathan Sawaya: Currently I am preparing works for a new exhibition. However, I don’t like to talk about the specifics of my next project until I am ready to reveal it. You can always check my website, brickartist.com, for my latest creation.
Indiefonica: From what we've read you buy your own lego bricks, do you get aspecialdiscount? because that's A LOT of lego.
Nathan Sawaya: I buy my bricks just like everyone else. I am a unique customer, because I buy tens of thousands of bricks every few weeks. I order directly from LEGO.
Indiefonica: What was the maximum number of bricks that you used in a singleartwork?
Nathan Sawaya: A life-size sculpture of a human form can use up to 20-25,000 bricks. I once created a billboard that measured 53 feet long and 15 feet high. It used over 500,000 individual LEGO pieces.
More Info: http://www.brickartist.com/
Last Updated on Monday, 03 October 2011 19:01