Made of Metal
Artist: Moi Herrera
I am a mixed media artist drawing: painting, photography, and, my love out of all, sculpture. Originally, I only created for myself and would horde my art, keep it from the world, but now I share it. Not for profit but so I can expand and dominate my demons with even more mind bending illusion. I create art not for arts sake, but because there is no other. Art for me is a psychedelic, psychological, and physiological release. My art is ever changing with every new event and discovery in my life. My creations, from the solid steel skeleton throne to my custom chopper bicycles, come to me not as planned projects but as obsessions. For about the last four months, I have been obsessively constructing a garden completely made of steel. From the trees to the flowers to the animals, all of them will be hand bent under fire and hammer, like the work of Hephaestus, armorer of the gods. I am consumed by steel: its smell, feel, even taste drive me to the point of insanity. The feel of heating and pounding something so strong into whatever I desire rivals the euphoria of sex. In my mind everything should be made of steel
This small selection consists of thirty colorful steel roses constructed out of twenty-gauge steel and quarter-inch steel pencil rods, along with a quarter-inch steel rod branch that supports some of the flowers. This small selection is meant as an enticement for the work as a whole. Mind’s Garden grew out of an idea of challenging the natural with manmade. It is not so much about any particular real garden, but more about extending my abilities as an artist by bringing into this world the garden within me.
