Restoration | Imitations

Plastic sculpture | Bronze imitation

a plastic casting becomes a bronze figure

A sculpture made of plastic should be restored in such a way that you think it’s actually been cast from bronze. In order for the new paint application to last, the old paint must first be sanded. In the second step, the whole figure is primed. After the regular drying time, the shimmering paint is then sprayed on and the patina is applied with the brush, so that the bronze effect later looks real.

Bamboo table | Bamboo imitation | 2016

The upper surface of what looks like bound bamboo sticks was originally a monochrome surface for supporting a glass plate. To complete the object, cut bamboo sticks were needed as an imitation, so that the impression of the bamboo sticks looked even more realistic.

Bronze chess pieces | Wood imitation | 2016-2021

Since 2016, the artist Gregor Hildebrandt has repeatedly commissioned the Swiss airbrush artist to paint various chess pawns.

First, selected wooden chess pieces are cast in bronze. Susi Montoro then repaints the bronze chess blanks with her filigree paint-mixing technique into corresponding wood imitations. She makes every single blank look deceptively real, as if the cast bronze was an original chess piece made of wood.

Bronze sticks | Cheese imitation | 2016

The idea of the artist Gregor Hildebrandt is to cast smaller objects from bronze to be painted later. In an international exhibition in 2016, this method was used to create, among other things, 4 cheese bites for a mixed media art project.

Metal parts | Copper imitation | 2017