Artist 43: Shen Saomin

Saomin was born in Heilongjiang Province, China. He lives and works in Sydney, Australia and Beijing, China. He exhibits internationally, including Liverpool, England, Switzerland, and Melbourne, Australia.

He's a bone sculptor, creating relatively large sculptural oddities of composite figures with bones from assorted animals, sometimes including human bones. THese things are sort of nightmarish, especially when you look at them in the face.

Unknown Creature- Mosquito


This thing looks huge, because it kind of is. It stands 230 cm tall, which converts to 7 feet tall!
These pieces are meant to criticize genetic engineering and what the consequences could be. Imagine if a mosquito larger than the average human escaped from a lab. The consequences would be catastrophic!

At the same time, they're supposed to be the remains of extinct creatures from an era where everything was huge. He occasionally carves into the bone of the sculptures, again eluding to man's disturbance of the natural world. He can create new bone forms by grinding the bone down to meal and casting it into a mold. These casts maintain the look and texture of actual bone, but allow new forms to be made.

Shen is another artists that goes along with the theme of the organic mixed with man-made. His composite bone sculptures have given me a few ideas on what to do with my newly acquired skeletons.