This sculpture is part of my Man Series sculptures, which includes three sculptures; Man Nro.1, Man Nro.2 and Man Nro.3. This series got started when I got a commission to carve wooden portrait. Man Nro.1 sculpture is an unpretentious wooden portrait of a man. When I was doing this commission i got an idea to do couple another versions. Also in these sculptures, I did use wood, but I also wanted to combine aluminium casting techniques to them.

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The Man Nro.2 sculpture is a combination of wood and casted aluminium. I did want to continue portrait theme but for me, in this piece, it was not anymore some much about the likeness of the subject but more about combination about these different materials and the reactions between them. This sculpture was also a technical challenge for me because i did want to do casting process that way that in the final piece you don’t see the casting channels. In the nutshell, this means that I did want to cast this work from the bottom side and I had to build the casting channels inside in the wood.

Reactions between melted aluminium and wood are clearly visible in this work. Melted aluminium burns and turns wood into charcoal next to it, but it doesn’t burn the whole piece. Actually, it is surprising how well wood is handling melted aluminium. Wood and aluminium are also affecting each other in that way, that wood is patinating aluminium and also the hotness of melted aluminium is altering wood color. I think that is because there is always some moist inside the wood and the casting process is raising the whole sculptures temperature so much that the water inside in the wood is boiling and that way the wood color is changing.