Menu
The New Contemporary Art Magazine

Raphael Truffi Bortholuzzi’s Intricate Grandmondo Miniatures

Bilbo's hobbit hole, a rusty ranch, and a workshop with an old Thunderbird '55 are just a few of the tiny worlds hand-crafted by Raphael Truffi Bortholuzzi. The Sao Paulo based artist and miniaturist began building the dioramas in 2010, an ongoing project that he calls "Grandmondo Miniatures", meaning "big world" miniatures. Though his dioramas are fantastic in their smallness, and sometimes delve into imagined worlds, for the most part, Bortholuzzi says he is interested in imitating real life.

Bilbo’s hobbit hole, a rusty ranch, and a workshop with an old Thunderbird ’55 are just a few of the tiny worlds hand-crafted by Raphael Truffi Bortholuzzi. The Sao Paulo based artist and miniaturist began building the dioramas in 2010, an ongoing project that he calls “Grandmondo Miniatures”, meaning “big world” miniatures. Though his dioramas are fantastic in their smallness, and sometimes delve into imagined worlds, for the most part, Bortholuzzi says he is interested in imitating real life.

Bortholuzzi uses a diverse variety of materials, from wood, metal, glass and even computer parts, while organic materials are used to create grass, moss and dirt for vegetation. The amount of detail that goes into his work is significant and purely for his own pleasure- details like rust, grime, and splinters can’t be seen behind closed doors or underneath objects. “On average, each project can take from 1 to 6 months its construction depending on the complexity,” he shares.

“Diorama is an artistic presentation, in a very realistic way, scenes of real life exposure to education or entertainment purposes,” Bortholuzzi writes at his website. “The scene can be a landscape, plants, animals, historical events, etc., is produced by hand in scale so that simulate a real form. All these techniques are ways to present a realistic view of a large scene in a compact space.”

First studying graphic design, and now an full-time art director, Bortholuzzi’s miniatures began with an urge to bring his digital skills into the physical realm: “I began to rebuild on a smaller scale nature and everyday things, like turn scenes from his imagination into reality. The miniature works depict a peculiar curiosity, different for each viewer. With realism and detail of each object comes an intimate relationship between the viewer and the work.”

Meta
Share
Facebook
Reddit
Pinterest
Email
Related Articles
French artist Marc Giai-Miniet has been creating for over 50 years, and over that time has accumulated a variety of titles from hobbyist, painter, printmaker, draftsman, and a "pipe puller" of symbols. His never-ending large scale dioramas which he calls “boxes” are almost Escher like. They take us through theatrical stages of industrial rooms; dusty libraries, attics, and winding, nonsensical machinery. These creepy post-disastrous events or crime scenes are beautiful in their destruction, similar to Lori Nix (covered here). Pops of color guide the eye throughout, but with no relief of an exit. Upon close inspection, one can find human organs and tiny, flickering flames of cast iron ovens. Read more after the jump.
Patrick Jacobs crafts dioramas viewed through a window and presenting “the viewer with a spatial and perceptual conundrum.” The artist combines sculpture, painting, and other media to create these lush scenes, moving between the familiar and the otherworldly in seemingly endless lanscapes. Recent dioramas have offered a larger, more immersive viewpoint.
Oakland based artist Tracey Snelling, featured in Hi-Fructose Vol. 35, creates detailed dioramas and installations of urban landscapes. Ranging from miniature to large scale pieces, her installations represent her impression of a space through the use of mixed media like sculpture, video, and photography. Hers is an imaginary world based on real places, sometimes populated by dolls and figurines, and lit dramatically by LCD screens and film stills to add a flicker of life. For her latest multimedia installation debuting on November 20th, Snelling wanted to capture the vulnerability and strength found in poverty-stricken slums around the world.
New York based artist Thomas Doyle invites us to look into another world with his humorous, and often times dark dioramas. First featured in Hi-Fructose Vol. 11, and again in our Collected 3 edition, his small-scale sculptures of houses and suburban towns provide an unexpected perspective of domestic life. As Doyle once explained, something has either just happened or is about to happen to their tiny inhabitants that combine the nostalgia of playing with our childhood toys with a sense of foreboding.

Subscribe to the Hi-Fructose Mailing List