Pipe cleaner sculpture | 8" x 8.5" x 9.25" | 2024
 
Please note that artwork will ship after the close of the exhibition on 12/20.
 
Montrel Beverly (b. 2003) is an Austin-based artist whose practice focuses on sculptures made out of pipe cleaners. These art objects are often kinetic, with moving and detachable parts that add to viewers' joy and wonderment. Beverly began sculpting at an early age, using common household materials like paper towels and straws to create original characters. He started molding pipe cleaners in elementary school after his teacher introduced him to the medium. Pipe cleaners provide Beverly with an immediacy that is important to his process, a material that he can quickly manipulate and begin solving the puzzle of his sculpture with. "When you bend it, it stays. I like that. I can put things in different poses and change things."  Though pipe cleaners are often dismissed as a craft material, Beverly elevates them to fine art, building elaborate creations that include automobiles,  Ferris wheels, and buildings. His work has been featured in Hyperallergic and Juxtapoz and represented at New York City's Outsider Art Fair.