Brendan Dawes
The Art of Form and Code

In the early 2000s I bought a large box of random vintage toy robots off Ebay

In the early 2000s I bought a large box of random vintage toy robots off Ebay. Most were cheap and inconsequential, but some were Japanese and made of tin and actually a little sought after. After some further research I began to disappear down the rabbit hole of collecting largely vintage Japanese robots from manufacturers such as Cragstan-Yonezawa, Horikawa, Masudaya and Yoshiya.

These robots stare down from the shelves around me as I sit in the studio working on my projects, mechanical and electronic overlords watching over me as I use digital tools and processes to put something new into the world.

Eventually I thought it was time to fuse my love of these beautiful objects with my art practice, creating an imagined series of robots, generated, or “descended” from the robots I’ve collected over the years.

A series called Descendants is the result. These children of my own collection are purposely delicate in nature, with an aesthetic that is part machine and part organic. Each features a unique serial number.

Available on @withfoundation