Grip Tape Metal

A series of sculptures and paintings that extend the visual and material language of the Surelo collection into more immediate, tactile forms. The sculptural works are built from steel and formed into simplified shapes that often suggest faces or near-recognizable figures. Alongside them, a parallel body of paintings carries the same visual logic into two-dimensional space, using line, color, and surface to echo the sculptural language.

Across both mediums, the work is activated through material. Painted color fields, adhesive vinyl, tape, and skateboard grip tape introduce texture, contrast, and friction. These elements are not decorative additions but core components of the work. They bring the visual language of mass culture into direct contact with materials that traditionally signal permanence and value.

This series grows directly out of the Surelo collection, which begins from the understanding that we live inside a media landscape so embedded in daily life that it has become indistinguishable from culture itself. The jingles, cartoons, icons, and images that saturate contemporary experience function as shared mythology. In Surelo, these elements are not observed from a distance. They are the material the work is built from, used to examine the present from within and to actively participate in the story as it is still being written.

Within this extension, that language is distilled. Figures and symbols appear in a state of near recognition, familiar enough to resonate but open enough to resist fixed meaning. The tension between permanence and disposability remains central. Steel, bronze, and brass meet vinyl, paint, and grip tape. What endures and what is temporary are held together without resolution, reflecting the reality of the cultural landscape the work inhabits.

Animation continues to inform both structure and sensibility. Forms are simplified and compressed, carrying meaning through gesture, silhouette, and surface. The influence of anime and early animation is present not only as reference but as a way of thinking. The result is a body of work that moves fluidly between sculpture and painting, between object and image, unified by a shared visual and conceptual DNA.