MOL
London-A British artist has created his own Hollywood-style Transformer out of a humble Ford Fiesta.
Hetain Patel spent three months working on his first sculpture, in which he turned the car into a real-life ‘robot in disguise’. The rear wheels of the Fiesta have been converted into the legs and feet of the squatting Transformer and the doors have been turned into long arms.
The artist was joined on the project by his father, whose job is to convert vehicles into hearses, and his engineer brother Pritum. Mr Patel said the work is more than just a reference to pop culture but explores the issues of identity, reality, fantasy and transformation. He said it reflects his identity as the son of an Indian immigrant and looks at the relationship between class, immigration and family.
The artist, whose work is featured on his website, deliberately chose a 1988 Ford Fiesta for the sculpture as it was the first car he drove, aged 17. The car’s number plate also almost perfectly spells out ‘family’, which was unintentional but ‘perfect’ for the work.
Mr Patel said: ‘Born in the UK to immigrant Indian parents, the passing of a car between 1generations provided me with my first taste of independence. ‘Manufactured in England, this car stands as a symbol of working class Britain - a native body, albeit a metal one.’ He said, as well as reference the Transformers franchise, the project also reflects his own family.
As well as choosing a car that was personal to him, Mr Patel said the squatting pose was also a deliberate choice. Mr Patel wrote: ‘Unlike the popular toys and films, however, the car here is not a high-powered sports car or truck transformed into a powerful warrior, but rather a small, inexpensive Ford Fiesta transformed into a human, calmly squatting.
‘This posture is a recurring image in my work and forges a link between the lower classes in India and my immigrant family in the UK, both of whom sit comfortably this way.
‘Naturally this introduces a tension in this sculpture between the seemingly submissive nature of the squat and, in this case, its oddly larger than life scale.’
Transformers were originally launched in Japan in 1984 and featured factions of alien robots, who can disguise themselves as cars of other electrical equipment, and struggle for peace or dominance.