Response by Milê Murtanovski
Artist Statement
While I’ve been fascinated with scale models ever since I saw one as a child of a hospital in its own lobby, I wasn’t moved to build any until I was in my early twenties. Even then, I built only a few starships and then stopped… until 2015, when I resumed the hobby in earnest. Aside from a few more spaceships, my scale model projects (over 30, so far) tended to have a personal theme, as I built replicas (adapted from existing kits) of my uncle’s two trucks he used for his chain link fence business (I worked with him and my cousin for a couple of summers all over Toronto in the mid-‘80s); I scratch- built a model of the mid-century modern Bata Headquarters in Don Mills that I drove past hundreds of times on the way to and from the nearby Macedonian church or the even nearerby Ontario Science Centre; I scratch-built a certain blue police box from a sci-fi TV show I’ve loved forever; I’ve modified and personalized various vehicles for a few of my closest friends for their 50th birthdays; and so on. I stopped adding to my model kit stash a few years ago, but there’s enough material there to keep me interested for the rest of my life.
My main form of artistic expression is painting, usually in oils or watercolours, sometimes inks, but as I listened to the stories to pick one for the Circles of Joy project, my mind was open to three artistic possibilities I felt I could execute with success: a painting (or several), a scale model/diorama, or a comic book. When I heard the story told by Dave Ullrich (of The Inbreds) about the unexpected encounter at his two-piece band’s somewhat unconventional rehearsal space, rendering it in three dimensions seemed like the most appropriate way to go, especially since (I found this out during my chat with Dave) the band’s album covers all featured miniatures created by Jenny San Martin.
My construction is primarily chipboard clad in printouts of carefully (digitally) created, photo-realistic surface details of my interpretation of The Inbreds’ rehearsal space environment and elements within. The diorama is on a turntable to facilitate viewing from all angles as well as to evoke a spinning record.
Website: thenakedsilo.com