You have to look incredibly close to see it, but Joshua Smith packs an immense amount of detail into his miniature worlds. The Australian artist has a flair for the microscopic, and his latest project captures the familiar grit of urban life in a fascinatingly small-scale model.
The centerpiece of his recent work, Temple Street, is modeled after a real apartment block in Kowloon City, Hong Kong. Using finely carved cardboard, medium-density fibreboard and paint, he manages to emulate every minute aspect of a rough, big city landscape. Rust, graffiti, tiny advertisements, and other touches are perfectly placed and look realistic.
“I want viewers to be fooled, if I take a photo of the completed work in sunlight, to think it is the real thing,” Smith told ArchDaily. He has also produced models of more modest buildings, garbage dumpsters, and shops that fall under a running theme of urban darkness, which we previously wrote about here.
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