mmargini
DSC03638-Edit
Built: Summer 2023
My first LEGO painting — and an attempt to capture at least the postcard version of one of my favorite places on Earth. For a long time we’ve had an actual painting of Santorini hanging in our bathroom that includes some of these iconic details: the blue-domed churches with their bell towers; the perfectly cylindrical windmills with their spindly blades; the sunset that mixes with the dark blue ocean to create potent and otherworldly colors. I guess that painting was in my head, but I also decided to do a painting because, quite frankly, I’d gotten bored of doing interiors, and the idea of a LEGO creation that was 100% façade — one that could also hang on the wall instead of taking up precious 3D space in my house — had some serious appeal. That, and I also felt drawn to the prospect of trying out some version of forced perspective, which I attempted here with (among other things) the tiny door to the belltower and the stairs leading up to it. The red octopus is there because I saw one just like it hanging on the docks below Oia, the island’s northernmost village, and I wanted to eat it.
I’m also still obsessed — way too obsessed — with the color of the sky, which in some sense doesn’t exist: at Legoland FL, I found a cache of plates in this weird color (likely Light Yellowish Orange) that had been discontinued since the early 2000s, and had only ever been used in sets for a Duplo version of Eeyore. Lol. Finding LEGO esoterica like that has become my Roman Empire.
DSC03638-Edit
Built: Summer 2023
My first LEGO painting — and an attempt to capture at least the postcard version of one of my favorite places on Earth. For a long time we’ve had an actual painting of Santorini hanging in our bathroom that includes some of these iconic details: the blue-domed churches with their bell towers; the perfectly cylindrical windmills with their spindly blades; the sunset that mixes with the dark blue ocean to create potent and otherworldly colors. I guess that painting was in my head, but I also decided to do a painting because, quite frankly, I’d gotten bored of doing interiors, and the idea of a LEGO creation that was 100% façade — one that could also hang on the wall instead of taking up precious 3D space in my house — had some serious appeal. That, and I also felt drawn to the prospect of trying out some version of forced perspective, which I attempted here with (among other things) the tiny door to the belltower and the stairs leading up to it. The red octopus is there because I saw one just like it hanging on the docks below Oia, the island’s northernmost village, and I wanted to eat it.
I’m also still obsessed — way too obsessed — with the color of the sky, which in some sense doesn’t exist: at Legoland FL, I found a cache of plates in this weird color (likely Light Yellowish Orange) that had been discontinued since the early 2000s, and had only ever been used in sets for a Duplo version of Eeyore. Lol. Finding LEGO esoterica like that has become my Roman Empire.