Jaime Molina, a Denver-based artist, brings a unique blend of painting, sculpture, and graffiti to life through his stunning figurative wood sculptures. His works are characterized by large heads and angular bodies, often split open to reveal inner objects like cacti, honeybees, or small houses. What sets Molina’s sculptures apart is the use of hundreds of nails that pierce through the wood, forming dense blankets of spikes that serve as hair for his bearded characters.
Molina’s artistry extends across dimensions, from two-dimensional paintings to three-dimensional sculptures, and even into the realm of 2.5 dimensions with pieces that exist in-between. The nails used in his sculptures vary in size and age, adding texture and depth to each piece. These nails not only contribute to the visual impact of the sculptures but also symbolize resilience and strength, echoing the enduring nature of both the medium and the human spirit.
I’ve been working on this series for a while and it is still very inspiring to me. It is limitless when you think of all of the things that can be revealed if you were able to peal back the layers of a person. The first piece I did in this fashion was for a group show titled, “Cut” I took the title literally and imagined one of the nail heads I had been making, only cut open. What would be inside? The pieces have evolved a little bit, but the overall concept is still intact. The piece, “Treasure Maps” is about the improbability of uncovering the truth in any memory. If one had a traumatic experience, their perception of the event would obviously be affected. One would almost need some kind of map to locate the objective truth in the memory. I’m not sure that it would even be possible to locate and to me, that is fine. We as humans are wired that way and that’s why we are humans and not robots. It’s these complexities and tiny universes that would be revealed that interest me.
Jaime Molina
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