Zuza Mengham resin sculptures

One-Of-a-Kind Resin Sculptures, Whose Fates Are Sealed in an Flash

Most artists and designers start their practices making small goods, then scale up their work as their ambitions, finances, and studio spaces grow. London-based Zuza Mengham has done the opposite: Back in art school, she welded semi-functional steel sculptures so large and unwieldy she sometimes had to destroy them afterwards, while recently she began turning her attention towards resin experiments compact enough to perch on a bookshelf. Both endeavors come from a similar interest in working within the transitional states of materials — both steel and resin need to be manipulated quickly at a point just before they become solid, giving the artist a small window of time in which to create.

In the case of Mengham’s resin sculptures, shown here, she pours the material into clear styrofoam molds and manipulates colors and textures during two different states, using colored pigments as well as powdered onyx, slate, or marble. “The ‘liquid jelly’ stage is the point at which I capture marbling into a centered point,” she explains. “Essentially you flush a saturated color through a clear one just as it begins to set, and you can fix a marbled flurry of color in the center. Or at a slightly more liquid point, it can be guided to travel up the sides in a gentle spume. In the ‘cheese’ stage, you can play with imprinting the volume with foamy slices, which bruise air bubbles into the material.” Each resin piece is totally one-of-a-kind; they can be purchased through The The Store in London.
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