A Portugese artist has used 15 tonnes of cement to create a full scale car.
Portuguese artist Alexandre Farto, better known as the street artist Vhils, has based his work on the Seat Arona SUV.
It can be seen at the Urban Contemporary Art Museum in the Portugese seaside resort Cascais.
Farto said he wanted to “immortalise” the design of a car.
The work, called Tangible, took three months of planning to design and build the initial mould.
“I had never worked with a car before and had wanted to do just that for quite some time, so this collaboration has been a fantastic opportunity for me, a seamless connection,” he said.
The challenge was to sculpt a large-scale piece with material that is complicated to shape.
“I like to use rustic materials,” he added.
In fact, Farto used a total of 15 tonnes of cement, fibreglass and silicone.
An initial steel framework was necessary to build the mould.
The wheels were cast separately and each weighs 100kg.
The front part of the sculpture looks very like the Arona, but the artist has let his imagination run a little wild with the rear — make of it what you will.
“From a distance, it looks as if the car is creating a wake as it moves away,” the artist said.
“I’m tremendously proud of this piece; not only for its technical complexity, but because it has been created to withstand the passing of time.
He said Tangible will be a witness to today’s society.
“Not only did I want to immortalise the lines of a car, but ‘fossilise’ the relationship between cities and their inhabitants.”
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