Discover Eric Mesplé's Astonishing Technology-Mediated Artwork

The artist recalls his classmates thinking he was a bit crazy when he began experimenting with unconventional materials to create his mesmerizing artworks.

Mesplé’s work is unmistakably his own. Signature motifs include bones – both human and animal – rendered in black chrome and ferric silver nitrate, and bronze. Mesplé is an autodidact, and has spent hours reading manuals and diagrams that lead to his intricate, often scientifically-advanced creations. One early work from 2015 – a hybrid human-animal bone sculpture called Dominion – uses advanced lost-wax or precision casting, which is a method of sculpture from the Chalcolithic period. Needless to say, it is not a methodology taught in many contemporary art classrooms.

Mesplé is keen to point out that his inventive and confident interplay of material and methodology isn’t always achieved on the first try. “I messed up a lot,” he has said, “and the only reason things work out now is because I’ve messed up a lot.”

The artist’s interdisciplinary bent extends beyond the traditional gallery and museum sphere. Mesplé has worked on projects he has actively courted with clients specializing in medicine, the military, energy, and transportation. His collaborators and clients have included such blue chip companies as Google, the United States Military, and the University of Chicago.

Mesplé says he wants people to have a sense of awe and wonder as they come across his work. As you delve into his archive, it’s difficult not to feel that this is at least one mission the artist has already accomplished.