“Drawing” Portraits of Historical Figures With Industrial Metal Wires

Darius Hulea uses metal wires to create modern portraits of historical figures.

Romanian sculptor Darius Hulea masterfully created portraits using metal wires. Sculpting this way came from his exposure to the folk crafts found in his village during his youth. His grandfather worked with agricultural tools, giving him early insight into the power of industrial materials. On the other hand his grandmother and great grandmother wove traditional geometric fabrics. Those were the fundamental factors that pushed him to be this amazing and talented sculptor he is today.

“I discovered during my second year of college that the great artists of modern history used the principle of drawing in space or drawing the space through different metallic structures,” Hulea said continuing. “Some, like Picasso, used recycled materials or, like Calder or David Smith, industrial materials. That moment was the turning point of the sculptures that I am doing now. For me, this type of drawing is what we find in the sketches of the great artists of the Renaissance like Michelangelo and Da Vinci—serious and realistic compositions that anyone can understand.”

Many of Darius Hulea’s wire sculptures are portraits of well-known Romanian artists, philosophers, and writers.

“I hope that people will understand that I do nothing but draw in a new way, in a durable material of the past,” Hulea shares. “I can then explore and research, as an artist, mythical, Renaissance, and modern thinking by finding three-dimensional examples that describe us now in a history of the past.”