Artist William Pye creates incredible artworks that are inspired by the natural world. He draws on his interests in water formations and geometry to form these amazing, almost magical, fluid sculptures. Named after the mythical siren, Charybdis, who was struck by Zeus and turned into a whirlpool that swallowed up ships, this installation is one of Pye’s largest creations. A key element to the piece is the transparent acrylic polymer material used to contain the water. Pye elaborates, “A high level of water filtration is essential for maintaining transparency and thereby expressing the drama of the vortex.”
Working almost like a scientist rather than a sculptor, Pye enjoys experimenting in his studio to develop all kinds of spectacular water shapes and manipulations. He then translates this knowledge and water vocabulary into commissioned works that are unique and site-specific creations.
For Charybdis, the artist explains the process on his website: “An air-core vortex is generated within a circular dish. Water rises and falls within the dish in a cyclic program of water activity. When the system is full and flowing over the perimeter and down the sides, the top surface is comparatively flat and smooth, only broken by the vortex in the middle. However, as the level drops, the body of water seems to take on a life of its own, increasingly rocking and swaying as its volume diminishes unaided by any outside force.”
William Pye’s website
via [My Eclectic Depiction of Life], [Twisted Sifter]