Mario Martinez (aka MARS-1) was born in Boulder, Colorado in 1977. At the age of 13, he began writing graffiti in his hometown of Fresno. He later attended Academy of Art in San Francisco, where he currently lives and works remaining heavily active in the city’s contemporary art scene. Besides using brushes on the usual material he paints high buildings in cities and makes sculptures of bronze, participated in so many projects.
Recently the artist has released a set of bronze sculptures titled Mars Molecule Collection. The sculpts are three dimensional representations of the SF-based artist organic otherworldly paintings and were first revealed in this year’s Burning Man.
Made in Berkeley, California at the Artworks Foundry, Martinez utilized a mixture of modern and ancient techniques in order to create the 9-foot, 2500-5000 lb., bronze sculptures. Two of the sculptures are reminiscent of molecules, while the third takes on the shape of a Torus energy field.
Each sculpture took three to four months to create. They were first designed using 3D Printing, and then transformed into the sculptures you see here using the ancient “lost wax” technique, a technique pre-dating the Bronze Age (3,700 B.C.E.). The sculpture was welded from 70 different pieces, each ranging 2-3 feet in size. Part of the intent is to encourage a dialogue of placing more public sculptures in and around San Francisco.
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