
Heads by Monte Thrasher - Los Angeles, CA
Posted by:
silverquill
N 34° 06.158 W 118° 17.498
11S E 380860 N 3774288
These striking murals in the lively Los Feliz district of Los Angeles, are by noted artest Monte Thrasher, who designed the Romulan Star and alphabet for Star Trek. The artists comments are below.
Waymark Code: WM5FGP
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 12/31/2008
Views: 8

First Head: The Famous Inflatable Skull with Outer Membrane Inflated, Lost in Contemplation of a Cleft Klein Bottle.
I invented the Inflatable Skull when I got sick of books on anatomy for the artist, which always block out the head; the skull is not a block. Skulls are actually membrane structures, they're more like a wasp's nest or a bubble than a bony box, which (if you only get to see plastic Halloween skulls) is how we think of them.
Skulls are incredibly complex shapes, hard to sculpt (and rarely graceful or realistic when sculpted large) but my Skull makes a very accurate anatomical model, sculpting itself 'automatically' by the process of inflation. Long bones and vertebrae, pelvis and muscle-mass, an entire body can be built by this method. I dream of making a great slender lithe and sexy giantess, silvery and translucent, fleshed out.

Second Head: A Study in the Human Skull in the Style of the Lunar Lander
Done in one session in just two colors, a violet and a really handy new color, translucent rust red. Great for ghost town gloom and the shadows in old wooden barns. So different from ol' shadow-color standby Paynes Gray, it's a warm shadow, a sensuous gloom, not the blue shadow of arctic daylight. Western shadow.
Fourth Head: Twiggy the World's Ugliest Dog, in Glory as the Surface of the Sun
(in progress) Twiggy was the winner of the World's Ugliest Dog Contest, and is a favorite subject of mine. Those warty wattles and scraggly hairs are a joy to toss out with flips of the brush. Twiggy's owner said she doesn't understand why kids scream and run when they see her: Twiggy thinks she's beautiful. And you can see it in her eyes, chin up, smiling.

Fifth Head: A Klein Bottle Cleft in Twain
Last Head: Self-Portrait in my Mach III Golden Mylar Stellated Dodecahedral Space Helmet
(Of course, that's obvious.) I started the mural at the right and worked left, so this is the last head.
Monte Thrasher's Photostream