Marc D'Estout

Although I am now primarily an object maker, my formative art career was rooted in conceptualism and installation work that actively engaged viewers in carefully created environments.

I think of my current pieces as sculptural haikus–formalist reductions. I experiment with subliminal (or sometimes blatant) imagery in response to observations of social and cultural memes, personal (mis)communication, politics, or pop (sometimes dark) humor.

I usually draw my pieces first… sometimes as sketches, more often as precise guides. Most of my work is created from flat sheet-steel... the thickness of car bodies. Some pieces include steel rods. Shaped parts are created by hammering the metal into a sandbag or, sometimes, over curved metal blocks called stakes. The parts are then joined by welding and finished by filing and sanding seams, often to give the illusion of a single form. Surfaces are finished with either paints or patina. Other works repurpose and alter found objects… sometimes with new handmade components. These pieces often have a more immediate gestation.

While concept drives my imagery, I am equally obsessed with using traditional labor-intensive processes to manifest my vision. The act of hand-making objects from metal has become my Zen.