Don't 'block' this account: Ekow Nimako's incredible Lego Instagram
Follow @ekonomical and watch the Toronto artist's Nuit Blanche sculpture come to life, piece by piece
Saturday, just in time for Toronto's tenth annual Scotiabank Nuit Blanche, a barn owl bigger than a pony will take roost outside the Gardiner Museum. The sculpture, called Silent Knight, will remain on display through October 10. But right now, artist Ekow Nimako is still building it — piece by plastic piece.
Nimako's a Lego artist, and some 50,000 bricks will be used to construct the entire Silent Knight project. That takes patience — and, likely, a thick layer of calluses. (Barefoot and playing with Lego? Have you ever stepped on a 1x3 brick?)
But you can peer in on Nimako's progress without exposing yourself to any workplace hazards. Just follow @ekonomical on Instagram. The Toronto-based artist has been sharing regular snapshots from his studio, letting us watch Silent Knight as it rises.
Zoom in on details like these interlocking feathers…
And watch the sculpture defy gravity…
As it all comes together for the main event.
"I'm always fascinated to see what people are doing with Lego as an art form. That's my realm. That's the sea I swim in," Nimako says. Still, it's a medium he dove into fairly recently. It all started when he saw the live-action Transformers movie. Inspired, Nimako began building bots out of blocks — and he's Instagrammed a few of the cyberpunk androids that were likely inspired by the famous "robots in disguise."
Another frequently Instagrammed subject? Selections from his 2014 exhibition, "Building Black."
Raised in Montreal by Ghanaian parents, Nimako writes about the show on his website. The sculptures from that series "investigate the notion of blackness with the deliberate intention of exposing the cultural beauties and controversies of the black experience."
Most of the sculptures featured on Nimako's Instagram, though, are inspired by the animal kingdom, much like Silent Knight.
There's a 163-piece German Shepherd…
A 1,500-piece octopus…
A 2,900 piece viper…
A 140-piece Blue Jay… who'd probably get along swell with the barn owl about to make its Nuit Blanche debut.
You know what they say: Birds of a feather interlock together.
Social media can be so much more than selfies and viral videos — it's increasingly becoming a scratch pad for emerging artists and other creative minds to show off their latest work. Artstagram curates the best visual talent on Instagram, helping bring a little more art into your daily feed.