RON MUECK

Ghost 1998

Fibreglass, silicon, polyurethane foam, acrylic fibre and fabric
unconfirmed: 2019 x 648 x 991 mm
sculpture

Purchased 1998

Australian born, Ron Mueck first came to public attention during the Royal Academy's 1997 Sensation exhibition. He has been living in Britain for sixteen years and began his career as a puppet maker. He is currently producing figurative sculpture in a hyper-realist style.

Mueck's simulations of human subjects possess an eerie exactitude. He bases them on friends and relatives but does not directly cast from his subjects. Instead he makes works in fibreglass and silicone from maquettes modelled in clay. The distorted size and awkward posture often indicate the subject's emotional state. Ghost 1998, represents a seven-foot girl. Her enlarged scale and uneasy demeanour emphasise a sense of adolescent anxiety.





Born in Melbourne, Australia in 1958, Ron Mueck spent over twenty years of his life as a professional puppet builder and performer. The son of toymakers, Mueck worked on a children's television show, Shirl's Neighborhood, performing various animal characters. He was recruited by Dave Goelz while filming international segments of Fraggle Rock. Moving to London around 1982, he worked on several Henson productions, most notably providing the puppetry and voice of Ludo in Labyrinth. Mueck also worked at the NY Muppet Workshop with the Muppet design team.
Now a successful hyper-realist sculptor based in London, Mueck creates works of art based on human form, chiefly out of silicone or polyester casts. Mueck's own attitude towards his sculpting work was revealed in a New York Times interview in 2002: "I don't know why I'm doing it but I don't know what else I'd be doing. I'm not driven by art, it's just all I can do."
http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Ron_Mueck