Little Big People

My electrically intelligent and always missed friend, Howard, who lives in Canada with Sharon and their children (and my only truly grown up and married friend) emailed me today. This is a very rare occurence, but so is Howard's friendship, one of those delicious and too few relationships where we hardly ever see each other but it makes no difference. When I see him, everything slots into place. There were no words in the email, but Howard's more of an action man (literally, not in the doll sense), so this didn't surprise me.

Instead, there were a series of about ten or so pictures of various sculptures by a man called Ron Mueck. If you, like me until about ten minutes ago, have never heard of this man, then I strongly urge you to Google him right now. And if you can't be bothered to do that, hit the MySpace link to my site on the right and click on Pics underneath the picture of the gorgeous smiling redhead. Apparently, Mueck first made it big with his sculpture of his half-sized, dead father, titled, baldly, 'Dead Dad'. Born in Australia, Mueck started out working in children's TV before becoming involved in puppetry for the film industry. He wasn't exhibited until 2000, when Charles Saatchi invited him to exhibit at his infamous Brit art show, Sensation at London't Royal Academy. In short, (or tall, pardon the pun) Mueck creates uncannily life-like sculptures that are always either smaller or larger than life. I think they're quite disturbing in the main, but no less amazing for that.