John Ahearn is an artist renown for working with the figure in plaster. Born in Binghampton, New York in the year 1951 he is now a cultural icon of the Brooklyn area. His brother Charlie Ahearn, is a movie and film producer who was in charge of early 1980s movie Wild Style. I have written about this movie as another producer and former MTV host Fab 5 Freddie is also a painter. This movie chronicled hip hop activities like break dancing and tagging or making graffiti.
He often works with another artist named Rigoberto Torres when making his plaster casts. Torres was working in a shop producing religious figures when the two met. Torres has done works all over the world. His main collaboration with Ahearn took place from 1981 to 1985. The two did four murals together featuring people from the Bronx.
Ahearn uses fiberglass or plaster to cast his subjects then uses acrylic paints to further enhance the detail of the face/ portrait.
For his collegiate studies Ahearn attended Cornell University located in Ithaca, New York.
John Ahearn is based out of New York city.
price range information: Most plaster casts range from $2,000 to $6,000.
What is incredible about the clip below is to see the artist at work as he makes one of his renown plaster life casts.
What a unique and quick way to work with the figure!
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