PHOTOGRAPHY STARTS
THE PROCESS.
Every finished piece starts with someone we photographed. The pose, anatomy and proportions from that session stay at the centre of the image while we build around them. Depending on the piece, we may use painting, compositing, 3D work, lighting or other tools.
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The method changes from image to image. The photographed body remains the foundation.
THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE BODY
THE POSE CHANGES HOW THE BODY IS SEEN
A small change in position can reveal a different part of the same structure. When the arms open, the serratus and lats become more visible, while the pectorals change across the chest. Shift the weight through the hips, and the whole figure settles differently. Point the toes and the calf becomes more pronounced. The body is one connected structure, but the pose determines which muscles, lines and details become most visible.
WHEN THE LIVING BODY LOOKED BACK TO ART
Artists had long studied living bodies to understand anatomy, proportion and movement. Those observations helped shape the sculpted figures that became part of the classical ideal.
Later, physical culture and bodybuilding began looking back toward those same figures. Proportion, symmetry and posing became ways of presenting the developed body with some of the same attention once given to sculpture.
THE FIGURE CAME FULL CIRCLE.
BEFORE THE PROJECT HAD A NAME
We made this image before The Forgotten Art Project had a name. While working on the relationship between the living body and marble, we started thinking more seriously about why this subject kept returning in our work. The physique was already there. What interested us was how differently it could be seen when it was treated through the language of sculpture. That question stayed with us and eventually became part of what led to The Forgotten Art Project.
THE FORGOTTEN ART PROJECT
Years of work have already built something we see as monumental. The body carries the evidence of that effort before we ever make a photograph. Our work is to give it the kind of image we believe it deserves, one that lets the physique stand with the seriousness of sculpture and be seen as something worth preserving. Pose, light, environment and Creatography help us build that image around what is already there.
THE SIGNATURE COLLECTION
THE LIVING FIGURE. POSED FOR ART.
We created the Signature Collection because we wanted a body of work that could become recognizably Bombelkie. The setting stays deliberately consistent: the developed figure, the pedestal, the drapery and the artist’s studio. The subject changes, but the visual language remains. Each piece returns to the same idea: the muscular body belongs in the language of art and deserves to be seen that way.
A BOMBELKIE SIGNATURE.
SELECTED WORK
THE MONUMENT, ALIVE
