Art Awareness: Raúl de Nieves

The artist who's work I am looking at for this post is Raúl de Nieves. He is a mixed media sculptor and his sculptures are created with small beads like the ones that you can get at the craft store. Below is one of his pieces, Day(Ves) of Wonder.

Day(Ves) of Wonder, 2007–14, Mixed media

One of my favorite parts about this piece is the colors. Having a colorful color pallet like the one in this piece is a trait that I have seen in other contemporary artists' works. Even though there are so many colors everywhere I think the color scheme works super well. I think that its because there are so many similar colors like the pinks blues and greens that just work well together. This piece makes me want to try and use lots of bright, more neon colors like the ones here because they are exciting to look at. In the detail shot to the right, you can also see how he used different colored beads in a striped pattern in order to make a solid color from a distance. I like this because it creates a block of color, but if you stepped closer you would be able to see how detailed it is. This reminds me of some of the landscape paintings that I saw at the National Gallery during the DC trip where from a distance they looked hyper-realistic but stepping closer the work looked completely different and you could see that it was made from broader brush strokes. Another aspect of a lot of contemporary work that Raúl de Nieves's work includes is the use of unconventional materials. Instead creating a sculpture with traditional means, he uses lots of small beads. Using them allows him to create a lot of interesting details and layering. A specific part in the close up of his work that you can see this is along the neck area of the subject. There are some clear beads on top of the colored ones in this area which create an almost glassy look that I love. I couldn't find more detail shots on this piece specifically, but below I included a video of some details from his other works where he takes advantage of the small and intricate designs that the beads have to include amazing detail.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUcRh177A8g

This video shows some closeups of some of his other works from an exhibit called The Treasure House of Memories.