CUBE WORKS
Chalom's (b.1959) artistic process uses hundreds or thousands of Rubik cubes, crayons, Lego bricks, spools of thread or other objects to create subtle recreations of famous paintings, images or characters. In 2009 Chalom entered the Guinness Book of World Records with the largest ever image rendered in cubes, a 4,050-cube version of Davinci's The Last Supper. In 2010, he broke his own record with a 29-foot-long, 12,090-cube depiction of Michaelangelo's Hand of God.
Born in Israel, but raised in the Philippines and Dominican Republic, Chalom settled in Toronto with his wife. As a child he was a big reader of comic books and later the earliest computer games from the likes of Atari and Binatone, where round balls appeared as square pixels. Chalom's fascination with cartoonish imagery, pixelation and approximation continues today, his entertaining works evoking a nostalgia for past times by recreating images as if seen through the limitations of past technology.
Creative director of the Cube Works studio team, Chalom uses computer software to help arrange the component pieces, but fine dithering of colour patterns – each cube has only six – must be done by hand and eye. A team of up to 40 'cubers' depending on the size of the work twist the cubes' sides into the combination of colours required.
A bigger annual purchaser of Cubes than Toys-R-Us, current projects include a Great Wall of China, installations for casinos in Macau, and a full-size, 156-foot-long reproduction of the Sistine Chapel using 250,000 cubes.
Chalom lives and works in Toronto.
Please contact the gallery on: info@woolffgallery.co.uk with any enquiries regarding Cube Works's artwork
