“There's a little of every artist in their work.”....

I had already planned to create a piece celebrating the extraordinary creativity, talent and storytelling of Denis Villeneuve's Blade Runner 2049 when the opportunity arose through an alternative poster brief from PosterSpy.

Taking inspiration from Doc Badger's wonderfully economical exchange, “Real wood?” “You're rich, my friend”, the piece explores the collision of technology, science, structure, nature and destruction through the very material at the heart of the quote.

The original artwork was created using real wood, fire, chrome paint and hand etching, or Phyre Etching. The surface was physically scorched with a blowtorch before being carved back by hand, exposing the wood beneath and creating an image through a combination of destruction and construction.

The physical piece was then scanned at extremely high resolution to capture the almost infinite surface detail, before being digitally colour-treated and combined with scanned, hand-painted textures to create the finished alternative poster.

Real Wood, Reframed

Several years later, I returned to the original physical artwork and extended the idea beyond its edges.

Constructing a bespoke frame from pieces of real wood found on a beach, retaining their knots, branches, erosion and irregular forms. Each piece was worked, scorched and varnished by hand, with small carved details incorporated into the timber.

The frame isn't simply a way of displaying the artwork. It completes the thought that began with Doc Badger's line. An artwork about the imagined scarcity and value of real wood is now made from, and surrounded by, real wood.

Rather than containing the work within a conventional manufactured frame, the found timber becomes part of it: natural, weathered, damaged, recovered and transformed.

Materials: wood, found beach wood, Molotow Liquid Chrome, fire, Dibond aluminium
Original artwork: 29.6 × 42 cm
Framed artwork: 50 × 46 × 4 cm

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