Toy Soldiers Made in China Meld into Large-Scale Artwork

Can you even begin to imagine the level of effort and precision involved in completing a work of art made of no fewer than 5,500 toy soldiers? Visual artist Joe Black surely can, for it is exactly what he has achieved through his latest work, titled Made in China – a reworking of the Robert Capa photograph that graced the January 1938 cover of LIFE magazine, displaying a young Chinese soldier, a participant in the Sino Japanese war. Ironically (and intentionally) enough, the toy soldiers used are all ‘Made in China,’ hence the work’s ever so appropriate title. Black’s work furthers the current postmodern pointillism trend, featured as of late in an ever-growing number of magazines and exhibition spaces around the world, from Asia to the English speaking world. Large-scale images made with the aid of numerous small items, which essentially stand for pixels, invite meditation on the very fabric of current human existence.

Toy soldiers are not the only media in which Black operates. His No More Heroes triptych, for instance, renders large images of three beloved superheroes (Captain America, Superman and Wonder Woman) with the aid of pins and badges. The three heroes are depicted under the respective titles of Carry Your Own Sins, Missy, Animal Farm and Eat My Lies. Limited series of seven prints (smaller versions of these works), finished in gold leaf, oil paint and painstaking pencil detailing were available for sale on Cosh, an online art-store-cum-gallery, but have since been sold out. Postmodern art lovers out there can only hope Black will make his return with more great art available for purchase.

(Source: MrJoeBlack.com)