Theo Kamecke was for many years a film maker of award-winning documentaries whose subjects ranged frrodeo cowboys to nuclear scientists. He was in mission control during the first moonwalk and has been attacked by wasps in the heart of the Amazon. In the course of making films he often encountered physical objects and maom astronauts to coal miners, terials which fascinated him and usually managed to bring some back from his travels, with no particular purpose in mind. While perusing some stacks of electronic circuit boards one day, that changed, and the purpose was found.
He saw in the graphic patterns of electronic circuitry with their endless variety the same beauty we perceive in seashells, in crystals, in the grain of wood or even in the tree itself. These are all natural forms derived from function, so if we find beauty in them it is not because they were designed to please the eye. The same is true of electronic circuitry. Besides the inherent beauty he found in their design, Kamecke saw that the aesthetic qualities of the circuitry graphics could, like hieroglyphs, be resolved into an inscrutable language or like colors, into a palette of mood.
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And so in this spirit—treating a "manmade" electronic circuit as simply a newly evolved form of nature, Kamecke began creating sculpture surfaced with the graphics of circuitry, and he uses the traditional techniques of marquetry which in another century might have been employed with fine veneers. Though the material itself is the essence of hi-tech, the created works deliberately make no reference to that, hinting instead at ancient or familiar human cultures and at the feelings which separate us from the machine.
The sculptures of this series have been created from actual electronic circuitry (metal laminated to permanently dyed epoxy-fiberglass) applied in traditional marquetry technique to hardwood forms, with exquisite craftsmanship. They have the appearance of metal over polished black stone. For better image clarity many of the works are photographed in very flat light, though in actuality the bright reflectivity of the metal circuitry is apparent.
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| JUKE construction |
NEFERTITI construction |
Theo Kamecke’s sculpture has been exhibited in more than 60 individual and group shows since the 1980’s and is represented in corporate, institutional, private, and museum collections internationally. His work has also been the subject of many publications internationally. His studio is in the Catskill Mountains north of New York City.
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