Artist 14/20: Stan Winston

I've featured a blog about Jim Henson who, in some respects, is very similar to my next artist. His works could easily be considered artistic masterpieces as they stand but the twist with this man's work is that his artwork moves! The movement makes his work complete since his prerogative as an artist is to make his pieces deceive us into believing that they are alive and real. Such was the work of Stan Winston.


If you've seen any of the blockbusters from the past 20-30 years than you're familiar with his work. It is because of winston that we have such creatures ingrained into our culture such as the ALIEN, Terminator, Predator, Edward Scissorhand, and the Dinosaurs from Jurassic Park. He worked around puppetry, prosthetics, face makeup, machinery, and CGI to create a special effects empire and in his career has garnered 4 oscars. Winston is sort of the opposite of Jeff Koons in that he doesn't design the look of these creatures. His job is to figure out how to make them and make them work.


While his works might seem varied they all have a certain element in common which is appears to be the intention of scaring us. Most of his work was on movie monsters. They range from the alien, prehistoric, to robotic. He was particularly great in taking advantage of our fears of being hunted, our mistrust of machinery, and seeing something of our own human evils in the monstrosities he created. He and I share a number of things in common being that he originally persued being an actor but in order to make ends meet, he began working as a makeup intern for Disney. He found his little niched in the entertainment industry which is something I envy.

Monday, November 29, 2010 by Amidanah Rohmah · 0