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“As is” dented car hoods, scraped, rusted, folded in places like nascent origami, create an intimate and magical aesthetic stage for Rob Neilson’s new body of sculpture, entitled Demiurge. His imagery is a clever wink, a whimsical display of freestanding sculptures and wall pieces that transmogrify mass-produced cultural emblems. The ubiquitous symbols and logos of multinational corporations that blanket our collective landscape with the inundation of advertisements such as Coca-Cola, Home Depot, Starbucks, General Electric, John Deer, Ford Motor Company, McDonald’s, and Miller Brewing Company are borrowed, multiplied, and spun into large, unique, and visually compelling metal Spirographs. The known, understood, and synthesized imagery of these companies are purposefully disguised by the repetition of logos’ continuous line and the quirky bends of the foundational automobile hoods.
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Neilson has shushed the screeching promises, jingles, and guarantees of the beer, coffee, burgers, lawn mowers, cars, energy, and do-it-yourself housewares producers and manufacturers. The loud and distinctive brand names are still alive in their authentic color and design, yet no longer visually irritating in their overt consumer driven message. The sculptor has masterfully morphed the mundane, skillfully turning a pile of junk mail into a garden of artful flowers. McDonald’s golden arches no longer lure hungry customers but become a majestic gleaming blossom on a crimson river; the crystal blue fluid lines in Ford Motor Company’s logo are pristine petals on a bed of white snow; Home Depot’s carrot orange signature color and practical heavy block letters are transformed into a serene stained glass window; Coca-Cola’s ruby red can is a crooked freestanding hood, decorated with chalk white cursive wings.
Neilson transforms the essence, meaning, representation, and physical structure of the object. While the emblems’
Ford de Lis, 2011 Painted steel 73.5” x 50” x 16”
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