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source: bloggessato

What happens when physics meets fleece meets philosophical musings? Artist R Justin Stewart explores this intersection through his tensile fleece installations, which evolve into a three-dimensional infographic conveying relationships, connections, and data. The Brooklyn-based artist takes vibrant swatches of fabric, and stretches the material with tension ropes as the malleable fabric takes on a new form and identity. One of the works, A Messiah Project, 13C, features turquoise and blue figures that portray a 13th-century interpretation of the Messiah; the installation, however, meets the 21st-century through the embedded QR codes that can be scanned for further intellectual dialogue.
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source: vimeo

R Justin Stewart was born in Waukesha, Wisconsin in 1980. He attended the Kansas City Art Institute where he earned his BFA in 2003 followed by the University of Minnesota where he earned an MFA in 2008. He currently lives and works in New York City.

Stewartís recent selected exhibitions include: Like The Spice Gallery, New York, NY, H&R Block ArtSpace, Kansas City, MO, Winkleman Gallery, New York, NY, Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts, Grand Rapids, MI, Spaces SpaceLab, Cleveland, OH, +Plus Gallery, Denver, CO, Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton, NJ, Soo Visual Art Center, Minneapolis, MN, Bemis Center For Contemporary Arts, Omaha, NE (2005), Klein Art Works, Chicago, IL. Stewart has received awards including the International Sculpture Center 2007 Student Achievement in Sculpture Award and the Katherine E. Nash Purchase Prize. Stewart was also an artist in residence at Red Line Studios (Denver) in 2009 and the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts (Omaha) in 2005.
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source: collabcubed

Brooklyn-based artist R Justin Stewart creates both temporary and permanent installations using colorful fleece, rope, paint and pvc caps. The structureless fleece forms are stretched and, as tension is added to the ropes, the fleece contorts, acquiring its shape as it becomes rigid. Stewart’s installations are often forms of information maps, based on data that he has collected. He is interested in the connections between the fleece units and the relationships of the shapes to their neighboring units. The turquoise and blue installation (photos midway down from top) titled Distorting (a Messiah Project, 13C) is a research-intensive 3D representation of the concept of the Messiah, as it existed in the 13th Century. As the viewer moves through the installation, they will come upon QR codes embedded in the sculpture that can be scanned via mobile device to access bits of data represented by each fleece section.