Sijan creates ultra-realistic, life-sized human figures made of polyester resin and finished with artist oil paint, among other materials. Carrying on the tradition of one of the world's oldest art forms with a distinctly modern approach, Sijan's work brings realism to its highest level. Rather than celebrating the ideal human form, his work is a tribute to real people. These sculptures are the ordinary folks we might pass every day on the street. Sijan is the recipient of awards in more than 200 juried exhibitions, with work in major museums, including The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The San Francisco Museum of the Arts, The Byer Museum of Chicago, and the Carnegie Institute Museum of Art. The Canton Museum of Art in Ohio hosted a one-man showing of his work in November 1992. Spending as long as six months on one piece, Sijan looks for individual variations to make his work realistic - goosebumps, a sunburn, skin imperfections, birthmarks, age spots, tiny veins, hairs, and even bald spots. His method is distinctive and exacting. First, he works from live models, to produce a negative mold in plaster, and sculpts the interior with special tools and a magnifying glass to assure accurate detail. Then, he casts the figures in polyester resin. To achieve realistic flesh tones, he applies twenty-five coats of paint - mostly by hand - and adds varnish. Sijan's work literally makes people stop twice and check to see if the figure is a work of art or a real person. Gallery owner Bruce Lewin says, "When I first arranged the figures in my gallery, a crowd gathered outside trying to figure out what was going on, and when people come inside and look, they swear they saw one of them move."
Marc Sijan received his bachelor's degree in art education from the University of Wisconsin in 1968, then went on to an intense study of anatomy, completing a Master of Science in Art degree three years later. He began to sculpt the human figure, winning recognition throughout the country for his incredibly lifelike creations. Inspired by Michelangelo's "David", and intrigued by the instinctive and sensitive way Michelangelo treated the human form, Sijan took this attention to the details of anatomy to a new level - creating figures which seem ready to begin breathing at any moment. Marc Sijan currently lives in Milwaukee and continues to sculpt figures for exhibition around the country. A FEW WORDS FROM THE ARTIST...
On capturing life in his work-
On creating realism-
On the human form-
"It's interesting, this fascination - the human form is the oldest artistic subject, it was the first subject known to man. We keep interpreting it, over and over."
On protecting his work-
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