Artist

Rado Kirov

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Part of events on ArtRabbit in: London

Rado Kirov was born in 1955 in Bulgaria, where he trained as a coppersmith. He moved to South Africa in 1991 where he pursued a successful career crafting objects in precious metals, including a silver chalice presented to Pope John Paul II by President Nelson Mandela. A burgeoning interest in sculpture saw him using his superior craft skills to grow and extend his practice. In 2012, drawing on his thorough knowledge of silversmithing, the artist perfected a technique of manipulating sheets of stainless steel by hand. Using the inherent physical properties of the metal, he creates a striking three-dimensional surface that dynamically mirrors its surroundings. These pieces look like quicksilver caught in mid- flow. Kirov refers to this technique as 'the mercury effect'. His sculpture consists of wall-mounted reliefs and free-standing sculptures, all fabricated from stainless steel with highly polished surfaces. Some are geometric, some explicitly furniture-like, others are beads and droplets of formless matter; still more are glistening, reflective panels expressive of flowing landscapes. A new development are reliefs that reference the sensuous surfaces of the human body. The various pieces are subtly shaped by hand to yield complex, undulating forms from hard metal.

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