RAPID

Artist Plans To Crush His Father’s Skull And 3D Print Replica of His Own Skull With The Dust

Eplus 3D

Share this Article

British artist Lee Wagstaff had a “difficult” time relating to his father. His distant relationship with his dad has led him to the point where he plans to crush his father’s skull into a fine powder – and use it to replicate a model of his own skull with a 3D printer.

Lee Wagstaff 3d printed skull

Wagstaff, born in London in the late 1960’s, is an artist who, along with spending five years acquiring a full-body suit of tattoos which he says are based on “cross-cultural geometrical symbols” like circles, squares, swastikas and stars, plans to use what remains of his father to make a replica of his own skull from the ground up bits of his father’s brainpan.

After completing his studies at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, the Royal College of Art in London and Kyoto City University of Arts in Kyoto, Japan, Wagstaff has exhibited his body and large format, photo self-portraits at fine art and performance spaces around the world.

He calls his works “portraits that pursue an alliance between faith, space, geometry and anatomy.”  His current focus is on digital 3D data acquisition and reconstruction processes, and he says those technologies play a central role in his thinking.

wagstaff skull imageWagstaff says bodily materials are, for him, simply art materials like ink, paint, or plaster. He adds that in tribal art, materials like blood and bone are often used to create art.

“It’s only in a more sanitised, contemporary world that people tend to get sensational about anything a little bit icky,” Wagstaff told The Independent. “The project’s partly about working through this weird relationship. I was interested in the transference of things that my father was – and what he stood for. We grew up with dead things around us, so I have this interest in anatomy, going back to how things work.”

According to Wagstaff, his father, a hunter and gamekeeper at various points in his life, ultimately abandoned the artist and his family to live in the countryside and pursue his own interests. As a result, the artist says he and his family members grew up with dead things around them which led him to explore his fascination with anatomy and how living things are constructed and function.

“Once something is dead – once it’s stripped of all its life and muscles – it just kind of becomes an object, and you have to touch it and really believe that it is what it was,” Wagstaff told VICE UK. “I use my body as an arena for investigation, experimentation and exhibition. As a means of supplication and contemplation.Through repetitive technical processes and abductive reasoning I seek a deeper understanding of my faith and scripture by exploring an aesthetics of theology as part of my own Christian journey.”

Are you appalled or intrigued with artist Lee Wagstaff’s plan to powder his father’s skull and use it to 3D print a replica of his own skull? You can comment on the thread  ‘Artist Plans To Crush His Father’s Skull‘ on 3DPB.com.

Share this Article


Recent News

Stratasys Rejects Acquisition Offer from Nano Dimension

3D Printing News Briefs, March 22, 2023: Carbon Sequestration, 3D Printed Bird Drones, & More



Categories

3D Design

3D Printed Art

3D Printed Food

3D Printed Guns


You May Also Like

3D Systems Announces Partnerships with 6K and TE Connectivity

Additive manufacturing (AM) sector leader 3D Systems has announced two new partnerships, each involving another American manufacturing company. One of the partnerships, with TE Connectivity — a major producer of...

University of Arizona Gets $1.2M for Hypersonics 3D Printing

Hypersonic glide vehicles will need to resist incredible heat and pressure from flying at Mach Five and above. For that reason, the materials used to make them will likely be...

Featured

SmarTech Releases First Report on Emerging 3D Printing Technologies and OEMs

Key technologies like 3D printing are among the driving forces behind digital transformation in manufacturing. Today, additive manufacturing (AM) platform options go beyond the two historically dominant and pioneering players...

3D Systems Re-enters Desktop Dental 3D Printing with NextDent LCD1 System

Given that the dental additive manufacturing (AM) sector is currently the most mature, the competition for increasingly cutting-edge tools is heating up. Firms across the segment are demonstrating these new...