For 18 years, Masters and Munn have built a strong reputation in the fields of sculpture, lifecasting and model making. For the Past two years Creative Coatings have worked With Masters and Munn to create some fantastic metal and chrome effect finish for clients.
All of these art forms are under threat from the technological advancements in digital modelling and 3D Printing. In fact, when CJ Munn first saw what 3D scanning and printing could do, she burst into tears thinking it would take away everything they had both worked so hard to achieve. Instead of shying away from the changes that threatened to derail their beloved business, CJ & André (or Masters and Munn as they are known professionally) began to research that which they were so scared of, and in doing so became increasingly excited and inspired by this exciting new technology.
They decided to challenge themselves to create a work of such extraordinary beauty it would captivate the audience (whether from a traditional sculptural or contemporary art back ground) and hopefully inspire fellow artists and young people to come forward and embrace the new and unique creative opportunities these technologies allow rather than being afraid of them.
‘Icarus had a sister’ is the perfect sculpture for this purpose. The first designs of the life size winged lady about to embark on her maiden flight were created by André in 2004, waiting all these years for the right technology to be developed to make the creation of the wings possible to the high standard they envisioned for the sculpture.
Earlier this year, André made a fortuitous phone call to a 3d printing company called Industrial Plastic Fabrications Ltd (IPF) to ask if the artists could visit and find out more about the technology. Fate was to be on their side, as IPF had been looking for some artists to collaborate with for the much anticipated 3D Print Show at the Business Design Centre in London in November this year. Thus began a wonderful and serendipitous working partnership.
The idea was to create a hybrid sculpture using the best of traditional and state of the art methods that would mean enhancing rather than discarding everything they’d worked for in their careers so far.
The body of the sculpture is made from cast white (milk) quartz and the shelf she sits upon is cast slate with copper and iron. The wings are constructed from individually designed and 3d printed feathers in 30 micron layers of Vero plastic which Creative Coatings coated in a veneer of Liquid copper, then hand-patinated by the artists Which brings the beauty of real verdigris to the feather tips.
Masters & Munn have won the 2013 global ‘Rising Star Award’ at this year’s 3d Print Show (at London, Paris and New York) for our work on ‘Icarus had a Sister’.
From the Artists CJ and Andre
“It always feels like a bit of a risk when we outsource any elements of our work. Anything we can do in house we do, but this particular method of applying a veneer or metal to objects is something beyond what we can do from our home studio and best left to experts. We’ve worked with Creative Coatings for a few years now and can honestly say they are one of the nicest companies in the country to deal with. Most 3d printers seem to favour electroplating but we’ve had mixed results with that in the past and weren’t about to risk our precious 3d printed wings to anything unreliable.
“We were absolutely over the moon with the retention of the fine detail on our 3d printed wings with the copper veneer from Creative Coatings. Many people were convinced they were looking at real feathers due to the level of delicacy and fragility we were able to achieve with this new combination of techniques that simply wouldn’t have been possible with traditional sculpting or foundry casting methods. This was our most expensive and precious piece to date, and we knew that Creative Coatings would take the same level of care with the wings as we would ourselves. There are very few companies you can say that about, and as artists, it is so important to work with people we trust to have such high standards, and such respect for the work they are handling.”
