Prairie King by Stuart Haygarth

Stuart Haygarth was one of the first artists we featured on Upcyclist, along with his reconfigured collections of found objects, transformed into stunning chandeliers. A more recent piece from 2014 is Prairie King, which is based on a body of work inspired by the concept of play. Haygarth explains,

The German philosopher G.W Leibniz founded an Akademie of Playing in Hannover in 1700. He was convinced that scientific learning and real discovery comes out of playfulness. Maybe playing without rules or pressure is at the core of creativity and hence the process of making art/design.

For Prairie King, Haygarth transformed a collection of pressed steel rocking horses manufactured in the 1950s and ’60s by Mobo. These have been given a highly chromed and reflective surface and positioned vertically around 6000 fairground bulbs, “like moths around an exterior light.”

Images via Stuart Haygarth