Zebra and Sun
Course: Introduction to Design Studio II: Collaborative Design
Professor: Stefano Fusani
Incorporating inspiration from a famous artist alongside a tetabrick.
Selected Artist
Cai Guo-Qiang is a world-renowned artist born in Quanzhou, China in 1957 and moving to New York in 1995. He is well known for his use of gunpowder to make expansive and explosive painting. Additionally, Guo-Qiang is well known for making firework artwork including the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
I chose Guo-Qiang as my artist of reference for this project due to his unique material of choice for his artwork, gunpowder. It was the perfect opportunity to experiment with a material that I don’t typically see in art or design.
Cai Guo-Qiang
Designing
To make this project my own, I chose to develop a zebra stencil alongside a sun out of card with a laser cutting machine. I chose a zebra as growing up as a kid, zebras were my favorite animal. I wanted to incorporate a personal part of my life into this project.
Crocodile and Sun (2007)
I chose to use Cai Guo-Qiang’s work ‘Crocodile and Sun’ (2007) as a work of reference for this project as it was firstly one of his works that he uses gunpowder as a main material of choice and secondly, it provided me future steps that were attainable and feasible for myself within the timeframe of this project.
Explosive Tests
1st Prototype
After the explosive testing shown above, the first prototype of this project, shown on right, was produced. I had realized I had made an error with how I used my stencil as Crocodile and Sun used a positive stencil to make a negative crocodile and sun while I had done the opposite and used the negative of the stencil to produce a positive sun and zebra
2nd - Final prototype
After realizing my mistake of using the negative stencil instead of the positive, I laser cut the stencil again and used the positive stencil instead.
Additionally, I ran out of the explosives, as I had only been able to source 2 small celebratory fireworks from Valencia. So, I crushed charcoal and placed it over the stencil. With the assistance of a blowtorch, I burnt the charcoal on the tetrabrick and left the look I desired.
