Ziggy Stardust in Bronze: A tribute and Transformation

Ziggy Stardust in Bronze: A Tribute and a Transformation

When I first sculpted Ziggy, I didn’t know he’d end up in a museum—let alone as part of an exhibition honoring David Bowie himself. And yet, here he is: my bronze sculpture Ziggy is on view through September 28 at the Santa Monica Art Museum in the beautifully curated exhibition, A Day with David Bowie.

The story of this piece begins with a collaboration that sparked something unexpected. A few years ago, I worked with my friend Jota Leal, a gifted portrait painter known for his surreal and psychologically charged caricatures. Jota painted a version of Bowie that stretched and amplified the icon’s angular features—turning his face into a poetic exaggeration of the alien charisma we all remember. Something about that image got under my skin. It wasn’t just a portrait—it was an invitation. I could see the sculpture forming before I’d even picked up a tool.

That’s how my bronze Ziggy came to life—not as a likeness, but as a sculptural riff on Jota’s wild, expressive vision. I leaned into the myth: the pointed ears, the elongated jawline, the hollow, watching eyes. This wasn’t just David Bowie—it was Ziggy Stardust, reimagined as a space-age oracle frozen in time. Otherworldly, but still human.

To now see Ziggy installed in A Day with David Bowie is something I’m deeply proud of. The exhibition itself is centered on a quiet, powerful series of black-and-white photographs by Christine de Grancy, taken during Bowie’s 1994 visit to the Art Brut Center in Gugging, Austria. In those images, we see a different side of Bowie—not the showman, but the seeker. He sits in silence, smokes, observes. He listens to outsider artists with genuine curiosity and respect. That atmosphere of intimate reflection is the perfect setting for this piece, born from a collaboration that honored Bowie’s own gift for transformation.

The museum has done a beautiful job letting the work breathe. De Grancy’s photographs offer stillness. And nearby, the museum's companion exhibit Spectacle adds another layer, with 60 large-format images from National Geographic on view—offering scale, grandeur, and global context. The Santa Monica Art Museum is open Wednesday through Friday from 12–8 p.m., and weekends from 10–8 p.m. It’s fully accessible, and private visits can be arranged.

I hope you’ll visit if you’re in the Los Angeles area. For me, this exhibition isn't just about David Bowie—it's about creative exchange, about reinvention, about letting one artist’s vision evolve through the hands of another. From Jota’s surreal brushstrokes to my sculpted bronze, Ziggy came into being as part of a shared dialogue. Now, he’s part of another: a collective tribute to the man who taught us all to embrace the strange, the beautiful, and the otherworldly.

And if you find yourself standing in front of Ziggy, I hope you feel it—that hum of transformation, the invitation to imagine, and the echo of an artist who never stopped becoming.

"Wondrous" Automatons and Sculpture at Studio DDLA

I am delighted to announce that my Solo Show Wondrous - Automatons and Sculpture will be opening at Studio DDLA at 944 Chung King Road Los Angeles, CA on March 7th, 5 pm to 9 pm.

In my work, I combine Victorian-era invention and surrealism, crafting mechanical creatures and figures that come to life through the magic of found machinery. Each sculpture tells its own story, a blend of vintage charm and unsettling oddity, as if the imagination of Jules Verne collided with the bizarre beauty of mechanical life.

Through my kinetic assemblages, I breathe life into discarded gears, forgotten tools, and relics of the past, transforming them into endearing yet grotesque creations that whir, tick, and glide with purpose. My work captures the quirky essence of vintage toy automatons and the eerie sentience of uncanny dolls, drawing inspiration from the forgotten machinery of a bygone era.

Each piece is a self-contained theater of motion, where nostalgia meets innovation in a dance of mechanical wonder. My sculptures don’t simply invite the viewer in—they seduce them into an ongoing dream of whimsy and mystery, where the boundary between past and future, life and inanimate, is deliciously blurred.

For collectors, galleries, and lovers of steampunk and vintage-driven, three-dimensional art, my sculptures are an immersive experience in mechanical beauty. Explore the strange and captivating world I've created, where every movement tells a story.

We're Coming to Vegas!

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We are delighted to participate in this year’s Barrett Jackson at The Las Vegas Convention Center. I will proudly displaying my mechanical sculptures along with top exhibitors at this premiere event.

For over 50 years, enthusiasts from all over the world have flocked to the Barrett-Jackson collector car auctions, named America’s No. 1 Attraction for Car Lovers in the 2019 USA Today Readers’ Choice Contest. Widely regarded as a barometer of the collector car industry, the auctions have evolved over the years into world-class automotive lifestyle events where thousands of the world’s most sought-after, unique and valuable automobiles cross the block in front of a global audience ‒ in person and on live national and international television. Barrett-Jackson produces The World’s Greatest Collector Car Auctions in Scottsdale, Arizona; Palm Beach, Florida; Las Vegas, Nevada and Houston, Texas. In addition to the millions watching the events via live television coverage on FYI and HISTORY, over 500,000 people are in attendance at all four auctions, looking to witness auction action at its best, capture the car of their dreams, mingle with celebrities, experience adrenaline-pumping thrill rides in the latest vehicles from America’s top automakers or shop in the vast Exhibitor Marketplace.

Spirits in the Art Afterlife

My wife, Nathalie Tierce and I are so honored to be part of the group of artists curated by Gold Bug of Pasadena, who have embellished the blank canvases of the “Spirit” ceramic series created by Roberto Cambi to benefit the ACLU of Southern California

View the full collection
Visit The Full Collection

From the Gold Bug website: A group exhibition and auction featuring the sculptural art of twenty contemporary artists playfully exploring life after death.

To generate funds and support for the ACLU of Southern California.

Opening Reception 5pm-9pm Monday, November 1, 2021

34 East Union Street Pasadena, CA 91103


Gold Bug invites you to spend part of your evening, on that celebratory day of Día de los Muertos, delighting in art and drink at the opening reception of Spirit: Art Afterlife. Please join the party of Friends, Family and Participating Artists! No RSVP necessary.

For the exhibit, Gold Bug has provided 20 contemporary artists with the same blank canvas on which to work, a three-dimensional ghost sculpture made by ceramic artist, Roberto Cambi. The collection as a whole represents a broad swath of contemporary surrealist work, asking the viewer to reconsider what they know about the genre today. And, to put a smile on their face.

Participating Artists listed in alphabetical order by first name:

Brett Alan Nelson

Brooke Weston

Catherine Gisez

Chris Towle

Douglas Little

Gustavo Rimada

Johnny KMNDZ Rodriguez

Kristina Drake

Laura Kramer

Liz Huston

Mark Villalobos

Michael Campbell

Michael Schmidt

Nathalie Tierce

Roberto Benavidez

Rooted and Stitched

Sasha Camacho

Somsara Rielly

Steven Daily

Vincent Van Dyke

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Opening Reception for Solo Show at The Neutra Museum

It was a fantastic experience having a solo show at The Neutra Museum in Los Angeles. The knowledge that the museum will be closed for two years, starting in January 2022 for a significant renovation, made the experience all the more poignant. This show would be one of the last exhibitions in this historic space for a long while.

The exhibition had a vibrant turnout. It was terrific seeing everyone enjoying the work.


Welcome to Living Image Studio

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This video is a behind the scenes peek at the studio and some of my works in progress.

All aspects of the special effects process, from sculpting to molding to casting, painting and the building the internal mechanisms that move the kinetic pieces, happen here.

I usually have several projects on the go at a time with separate stations for sculpting, engineering and finishing.

My workshop is located in North Hollywood, CA