Image II, 2007 . books, frame, twine
“My work is always halfway between a song and a punch” says Canadian sculpture Maskull Lasserre.
From his serene well groomed and painted works to his sculptures featuring carved and altered books Lasser blends “elements of nostalgia, accident, humor, and the macabre… into works that induce strangeness in the familiar, and provoke uncertainty in the expected.”
Here’s some song and some punch for your enjoyment:
Harlequin, 2007. Political ideology texts, steel
Vanishing Point, 2010. Pencil on the sanded edge of compressed newspapers
In March 2010, Lasserre traveled to Kandahar province in Afghanistan for two weeks as part of the Canadian Forces Artists Program.
When he returned, as you can imagine, his perspectives on life and art had undergone a profound shift.
Fiction, 2007. Carved fiction novels, vice, steel
Fiction (detail)
Taxonomies (detail), 2008. Carved books, shelf
China, 2008. Carved American Scholar magazines, clamp
Lasserre’s website
Piece at Magenta Magazine: A Song and a Punch: Maskull Lasserre’s sculptures balance the contemplative and visceral