A Nail Sculpture by Marcus Levine

Slaughtering an artist in the literal sense. He creates his paintings by nailing a white wooden panel. At his latest series of paintings exhibited in a gallery in London, Marcus has spent more than 50,000 pieces of iron.

The sculptural works of british artist marcus levine enact a physical pointillism, each composed of thousands of nails hammered into wood panels. all works are completed freehand without any sketches or tracing onto the boards. the pieces on average use about 15,000 nails each, but some involve over 50,000.

levine originally began with abstract works, but became interested in 'the interplay between the rigid, angular nails
and the soft curves of the human torso'. a recent return to non-representational pieces has allowed him to use larger, clout nails
instead of 20mm cabinet nails, adding depth to the sculptures.

because of their fundamentally three-dimensional nature, light plays an important role in the display and viewing of the works.
'from morning sun to evening sun,' levine explains, 'the shadows across the sculptures change and affect the contrast, and by altering artificial lighting, the sculptures can appear as light as a pencil sketch or as dark as a charcoal drawing.' tonality in the images is effected through the height at which he drives the nail into the board, as well as the orientation of the nail head.