Shi jindian biography of martin

Shi Jindian (师进滇) is a Sichuan-based sculptor born in 1953, who graduated from the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in Chongqing in 1974. Unlike traditionally solid and opaque sculptures, Shi Jindian’s works are ethereal replicas of everyday objects rendered in stainless steel wire mesh.

Choosing to use stainless steel wires,  he learned to crochet two-dimensional strands into three-dimensional forms using tools of his own devising. After weaving wire mesh around an object, Shi destroys or extracts the object to leave only the steel ‘shadow’.

The result, he says, is a kind of fiction, a virtual reality that can be walked around and touched.

Shi Jindian has produced sculptural replicas of a range of objects, from hulking military vehicles like bikes and jeeps to delicate musical instruments like violins. Accurate to the smallest detail and sometimes taking years to make, his works transform even the most industria