nelson and kim by NFN kalyan

‘nelson (mandela)’ by nfn kalyan from his ‘nature of the beast’ series

miami-based artist NFN kalyan has sent designboom his latest etched glass portraits from his ‘nature of the beast’ series. the first four sculptures – which also made their internet debut on designboom here and here – are ‘lebron’ (james), ‘barack’ (obama), ‘chuck’ (close), and ‘kundun’ (the dalai lama). these are the fifth and sixth installments, ‘kim’ (kardashian) and ‘nelson’ (mandela).

each portrait is made out of layers of quarter inch starphire glass. each layer of glass is engraved with a different section of the subject’s face and through that process there is an illusion of a 3D face looking at the viewer from inside the glass – ‘nelson’ is made up of 20 layers and ‘kim’ 21. kalyan draws, by hand, each layer of the portrait. his drawings are scanned and engraved into the glass from the scanned image and the assembled faces are LED lit from underneath. a walnut base houses the lights and supports the 200 plus pound sculptures.

kalyan’s artist statement for the series:

‘we cartoonize the famous. we turn a celebrity into caricature of a human being and judge them. but they do not really exist for us. just their fame, which is only our own daydream. they are figments of our imagination.

in this way we can ignore our own nature. if another person is great, we turn them into a god. we say they are not like us. if they are weak, they are useless. we say they are not like us. if they destroy, then they are the devil. and most certainly not like us.’

nelson is 20 pieces of starphire glass