ARTIST INTERVIEW: Barney Daniel Joseph
City: Bangalore
Profession: Sculptor
Tell us a bit about your work.
The mass-produced sculptures and toys we see in the market all come out of a mold. The mold is made from a masterpiece. My job is to make these masterpieces! Most of my masterpieces deal with the human and animal forms. I make my masterpieces by hand. If required I make the mold for the customer too. It is all done under the banner of “Sculpt Monkey Design Studio” www.sculptmonkey.com
How did you get into sculpting?
It was all a coincidence. I was struggling with RSI issues with both of my hands and squeezing a stress ball was my exercise. One physiotherapist suggested that I squeeze putty that is used to fill up the gaps between floor tiles. I did that twice! They kind of hardened beyond 5 minutes and they took the shape of my fingers with the fingerprints too. This was a fascinating observation for me.
Around that time I thought of making a Christmas gift for my elder sister instead of making a greeting card as I used to do in the past. I made a penguin from the Madagascar cartoon and a minion from the Despicable Me cartoon.
I, later on, undertook to make a Batman statue in polymer clay and kept reworking based on feedback. This was my first human sculpture! It took me a year and two months.
That was the starting point and I went on to testing out different sculpting mediums. My friends were my greatest encouragers and my first clients too. They made sure I stopped giving out my sculpts for free and to start charging for them. I found hope in having a career by sculpting.
You can find more about my journey here:
- Sculpt Monkey Blog: http://sculptmonkey.com/index.php/2017/02/23/artist-feature-barney-joseph-sculptor/
- Facebook photos (the good and the bad sculpts): https://www.facebook.com/barney.joseph/photos_albums
- My personal gallery and blog (with some tutorials): http://barneyjosephgallery.blogspot.in/
What are you working on next?
The next project hasn’t been finalized yet. I have taken the jump into selling my designs to the general public. It comes under the banner of “ Sculpt Monkey Design Studio” www.sculptmonkey.com
Any advice for younger artists?
My advice is not new.
- Practice your art/craft a regularly.
- Seek to learn more that can help improve and widen the scope of your craft.
- Publish your work or show it online. It may not be up to your standards yet. It gives people a chance to see how your skills have improved over time.
- Seek feedback and kill your ego.
- Work on the feedback.
What are your inspirations?
My artistic inspirations are from cartoons, comic books, and novels that I read when I was young. The thing that inspired me most is the capability to create a whole world and get lost in it. Anything was possible. This keeps me going, the endless possibilities!
Barney Daniel Joseph
Disclaimer: All the Artwork and the Images showcased here belongs solely to the individual mentioned above. It has been put up their permission and Men Of Comics holds no rights over it.
A Brand and Digital Marketer by day, a tech enthusiastic social media-friendly geek who produces content and can’t live without films by night.
In short, I notice things for a living and try to point them out to people. I write about movies, television especially superhero films, pop culture and Hollywood. When not listening to start-up pitches, I play with puppies and pretend to like craft beer.
You can follow me at the below social media handles. Don’t forget to keep your sense of humor.
