Call him the new Cubist.
Brendan Jamison, 29, has a sweet alternative to the traditional sculptor’s materials. His choice: sugar cubes.
Commissions for the fine arts graduate, who sells some of his larger pieces for up to £7,000 ($11,445), are stacking up from around the world, from China to New Zealand. His most recent: A scale model of a block of apartments near his home in Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter. (It took 11,256 cubes of sugar to construct.)
“I spent the majority of my childhood building Lego up in my bedroom, always attempting to capture whatever new thought I conjured up – be it a spaceship, skyscraper or robot,” he told The Belfast Telegraph. “The use of sugar as a building block allows for immense freedom through cutting and carving the sugar crystals.” He first started liking and lumping it in 2004, when he created a series of seven 9-foot tall minaret-styled sugar sculptures.
He uses special glue for his projects that’s absorbed into the sugar — a process he told The Telegraph requires “considerable patience and intense concentration.”
Jamison’s largest design was a tower that took him two months and 19,342 cubes. It stands 9 feet high. (To see some of his works, click here.)
Sculpture Magazine called Jamison “by far the most interesting sculptor to have emerged in the last decade in the North.”
Sweet.
Photo courtesy Crafts Council.