Family Fun / Arts & Leisure

'True to life, right down to the fingerprints'

By David Burke | Wednesday, June 11, 2008 | () comments

(Jeff Cook/QUAD-CITY TIMES) The guard is an example of artist Marc Sijan's "Ultra-Realistic Sculpture," one of several full-body works on display through July 6 at the Muscatine Art Center gallery. Buy this Photo

MUSCATINE, Iowa — It’s very tempting to nod hello to the security guard outside the Muscatine Art Center gallery as he sits on a chair by the doorway, clad in his uniform and hat.

Until you look a little closer and see that his ID badge says ART. It’s not his name; it’s what he is.

The guard is an example of artist Marc Sijan’s “Ultra-Realistic Sculpture,” one of several full-body works and numerous facial portraits on display through July 6.

Sijan, a Milwaukee-based artist, has created the sculptures since he was a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

“It was always sculpture, and it was always figurative in some way,” he said. “It sort of evolved, became stronger, probably in mid-’80s.”

Those little imperfections of the human body — wrinkles, freckles, age spots, visibly blue veins and the like — are what Sijan calls “little nuances that make it more realistic, almost to a spiritual level or an internalized level.”

He begins by taking a cast of his model’s body.

“I could leave it go at that, but it doesn’t tell the true development of a piece,” he said.

Instead, Sijan makes it “true to life, right down to the fingerprints.”

He can make his subject appear older or younger with blemishes added or subtracted and a change in posturing.

Once begun, the pieces take six to eight months to complete.

His work is half-sculpture, half-painting, the 61-year-old said.

“Both of them are equally important,” he said. “The eye of the viewer very often mixes and meshes the two together with the texture and the coloring to make it one and make it believable.”

Included in that are 15 coats of paint to create the human appearance.

“All this is done with color and a brush. It’s built up so that if you were looking at a sculpture of mine, you’d see a blue vein sandwiched in the coats,” he said.

The subjects of his works are all people he knows, albeit in different situations. His bowlegged mechanic was turned into a cowboy, for example.

One of his proudest works early in his career was that of his father-business manager, who was reluctant about the whole process. After seeing the finished work in the studio daily, he finally declared, “You know what, Marc, I get better lookin’ every day.”

Another subject was a Sijan “groupie” who frequently hung around the studio. The artist asked the subject to strip down to his shorts and Sijan re-created him, right down to the ripples of fat.

When the work was completed, the man was silent for about three minutes while looking at a virtual reflection of himself, Sijan said. A week later, he went to a doctor and eventually had gastric bypass surgery, losing more than 80 pounds.

“At the gallery opening, he would bring people around to show them and say, ‘That used to be me,’ ” Sijan said.

David Burke can be contacted at (563) 383-2400 or dburke@qctimes.com.