The Early Art of William Sweetlove
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Photos: William Sweetlove
Sweetlove’s Explorations into Cloning
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Photos: William Sweetlove
The Emergence of Sweetlove’s Water Wars
Over the next several years, Sweetlove reimagined his cloned animal creations into an all-too-plausible future, each gaining elements needed to survive an ecologically devasted world. Sometimes adorned with boots to trudge across the muddied earth from rising water levels, the artist’s creatures carry bottled and canned water, the only remaining drinkable resources. In other regions, unbearable heat has left deserts in its wake, Sweetlove’s beasts needing sneakers to tread on the arid ground, backpacks filled with food their only sustenance. Coalescing into the artist’s ongoing Water Wars series of installations and exhibitions, these cloned creations by Sweetlove encourage contemplation by the viewer of conservation and preservation, ways to avoid this dystopian future brought forth by global warming. But in considering Sweetlove’s genetically manipulated animal and plant works, there is an added element of the medium being the message, as all the synthetic materials used to create these “natural” subjects are environmentally friendly. Acknowledging that a world without plastics is no longer possible but that our means of disposing of these materials is the problem, Sweetlove’s sculptures are made out of recycled plastic salvaged from landfills or bronze taken from cargo ships that transported oil. Recently he’s even begun creating bag-shaped sculptures out of the remnants of discarded flip-flops. As such, Sweetlove’s more classical choice of a material for his newest sculptural editions seems, on the surface, out of place.Sweetlove’s Newest Medium: Porcelain
Partnering with K.Olin Tribu, who have been casting outré art in Limoges porcelain since their founding in 2009, Sweetlove’s Cloned Marmots are reimagined into this natural, organic material associated with high-end, traditional decorative objects. And by casting his cloned animal in fine china, a medium whose initial use dates back 2,000 to 1,200 years ago, it lends the feeling of an ancient cultural artifact to the work. Essentially altering the piece’s message with the shift of material, it can be interpreted as Sweetlove saying that the road we’re on to ecological devastation isn’t new; that the attitude of mankind, for centuries, has steered us towards where we are now.Click Here to Purchase William Sweetlove’s Marmot Porcelain pieces.

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