Until his mid-30s, Australian-born sculptor Ron Mueck was a big-screen special effects wizard working on films like Labyrinth (1986). It was his grotesquely beautiful sculpture Dead Dad, a perfect little replica of his father’s corpse lying on the floor at the Royal Academy’s 1997 Britart extravaganza Sensation, which first convinced the world of his crossover into art.
Having been to one of his exhibitions, at first, it’s the sheer technical brilliance of the figures that astounds. From the stubble on the chin of the small Man In A Boat to the mole on the neck of the 8ft-tall Pregnant Woman, the attention to detail is awe inspiring. But the real power is in the way Mueck plays with scale. His work is lifelike but not lifesize, brilliantly undermining your perception of the everyday.