Live-size sleeping woman candle

This wax sculpture of a sleeping woman was made with several wicks, turning her into a giant candle (not to be mistaken for the soap woman of the Mutter Museum). It was sculptded for the Arnhem Mode Biennale 2011 by A.F. Vandevorst.

production A.F. VANDEVORST installation for Arnhem Mode Biennale 2011 (via Neatorama)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: art • creepy • sculpture

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zombiebob

HMMM… both cool AND creepy as hell!
http://i.doubt.it Sergei Richard

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah nightmare food.
rabidpotatochip

As a sculpture, I think it’s impressive. As a candle, it will haunt my dreams. There is just something so creepy about the wax dripping down the hair.
- Thomas Zaraat
  
  Come to think about it, the wax is the part that squicks me out the most.
- zombiebob
  
  I wonder how it was sculpted? a giant block of wax? A mold? Or was it somehow partially dripped and carved into being? And where?
- http://twitter.com/Queensowntalia Queensowntalia
  
  It looks like she’s been shot in the head. Which I don’t mean as a criticism, I love the sculpture-candle, but that explains the creepy factor.
http://twitter.com/writebastard Ian Wood

Yeah, great. Like I really needed to be reminded of my sister, TODAY of all days.
millie fink

“Live size” has a nice ring to it, but I’d change the title to “actual size” (though she seems much bigger to me).
- tsa
  
  Dutch people are tall like that. She seems normal to me.
  - millie fink
    
    Sigh.
    
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOEKygOuIaU
http://www.facebook.com/people/Spitty-Sumo/100002601661770 Spitty Sumo

oh mah gah — it’s ZELDA from pet sematary!
technogeekagain

I guess this strikes me as another case where someone did a nice wax sculpture and then felt they had to justify the material by adding wicks… The placement of said wicks is at least partly successful, but it seems to me that if you’re going to have a human candle the flames should be at the chakras or otherwise express something beyond “this is the general sweep of the body.”

(I presume anatomically explicit candles exist. I’m afraid to find out.)
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Carin-Huber/1651994446 Carin Huber
  
  luckymojo dot com. Look in the catalogue under “ritual candles.”
Brainspore

I wonder how it was sculpted? a giant block of wax? A mold?

Probably a flexible mold. Most bronze sculptures are made using the “lost wax” method, which involves making a wax cast of an original sculpture which in turn is made from clay or another easily sculpted medium. My guess is they just went through the normal process of making a bronze sculpture but left off the last few steps. I made a pretty cool life-sized boar’s head centerpiece out of chocolate that way once.
- zombiebob
  
  mmm boars head chocolate
oldtaku

People, ALWAYS remember to extinguish your woman before sleeping. This is how house fires start.
newUsername

There’s another artist (Urs Fischer comes to mind, but I don’t really know…) that has done something similar… she’s standing though…
http://www.facebook.com/wordhole Neal Ross Attinson

This makes me empathy glands itch.
folkclarinet

I like the typo: “Sculptded” as in Sculpted-dead… ;)
HenryPootel

No Wizard of Oz jokes? Come on people!
- FernandoMontelbon
  
  I’m melting.. I’m melting….. hmmm.. maybe she’s *puts on shades* the wicked wick of the west?
FernandoMontelbon

Finally A lady who will melt in Fernando’s muscular latin arms.

Well.. that’s enough god awful puns for one night.
srose278

The body position and draperies sort of remind me of the sculpture of St. Cecilia (Trastevere). Not sure I get the wicks in this one, though. Gorgeous work, though.
jeligula

How can we sleep when our beds are burning?
- millie fink
  
  Easy–by paying the rent. By paying our share.
  
  ;-)
Soliloquy

Sort of Pompeii-esque.

And who is this guy? And why do I get the feeling he’s not wearing any pants? http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-65yd-7YQeI0/TekECk8bp4I/AAAAAAAABeY/OUvMSpq0R4w/s1600/AMB11_EXPO_1192.JPG
- jeligula
  
  He would be what we used to refer to in the 80′s as a PAF (Pathetic Art Fuck). To his credit, he omitted the black beret and French cigarettes. He has his trousers tucked into his knee-high boots. At least I am assuming so.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  That reminds me of that episode of Absolutely Fabulous when they visit their friends who live in the empty-except-art, all-white house. And are a teeny bit affected.
  - millie fink
    
    Those purged, purely white art spaces (the White Cube) are disturbing, and that guy’s Nazi chic is disturbingly apt. The parallels in The Art World to other sorts of “colored” purgings are not purely coincidental.
    
    I highly recommend an intriguing little book in this regard, David Batchelor’s Chromophobia.
    
    The central argument of Chromophobia is that a chromophobic impulse – a fear of corruption or contamination through color – lurks within much Western cultural and intellectual thought. This is apparent in the many and varied attempts to purge color, either by making it the property of some “foreign body” – the oriental, the feminine, the infantile, the vulgar, or the pathological – or by relegating it to the realm of the superficial, the supplementary, the inessential, or the cosmetic.
    
    http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/351621.Chromophobia
http://www.facebook.com/people/Richard-Hung/100002536908419 Richard Hung

Brainzzz…
http://www.facebook.com/keith.anselm2 Keith Anselm

I’d put it in my living room.
quitterjunior

Did you mean: Life-size?

Godspeed return receipt,
Gamma Gerber’s
http://artdonovan.typepad.com Art

A very arresting image. Beautiful and quietly horrifying. Well Done!
Lobster

Yeah… you’ve been a bad candle, haven’t you?
http://twitter.com/TheOddLuminary The Odd Luminary

This would be quite the Thanksgiving Centerpiece. Might end hosting duties for years.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_LPTDNOEDSAU6F7RQJHIJ44Y5KM funchy crunchy

Don’t you mean LIFE size not “live size” ? Or perhaps “life sized”?