Chairman of the Hoard.
Artist Nemo Gould, a.k.a. nemomatic, is a compulsive collector of things and a maker of all sorts: kinetic sculpture built from what the world threw away, made in Oakland, California.
Self-described “Chairman of the Hoard”, Nemo Gould is a master accumulator of both materials and building techniques. His Oakland studio is a veritable museum of old objects and technology, which he blends into his signature style of kinetic sculpture.
His work pushes the limits of found-object art and asks the viewer to experience it through interaction — a crank, a button, a motion sensor. Gould received his BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1998 and his MFA in sculpture from U.C. Berkeley in 2000. His work is held in museums and collections throughout the U.S. and abroad.
How a piece happens
The vast majority of the work on this site is the product of found and salvaged materials. Each sculpture takes a long time to build, and nearly as long is spent searching for “raw” material: scrap-metal yards, second-hand stores and dumpsters. All of it is brought to the studio, cleaned, stripped of anything unusable and sorted for later. The system of organisation is a key to the work. To all you fellow hoarders out there: if you don’t know what’s buried under that pile in the corner, it’s just garbage.
The range of objects has forced a range of skills not often associated with art-making. The abundance of aluminium, for example: those pieces are formed by TIG-welding many found elements together and sanding out the seams. Contrary to how they may look, no raw metal is cast. Wood is stripped of old stains and varnish and resurfaced; holes are filled, cracks mended, missing parts remade from other scraps. The urge to make more engaging sculpture led to electronics, wiring, mechanical engineering and machining — and once again, elements of consumer devices are salvaged, repaired and given a new job.
Find
Scrap yards, thrift stores, dumpsters. The right typewriter case can take a year to turn up.
Sort
Everything cleaned, stripped and shelved by type in the Oakland studio. The system is the work.
Weld
Found aluminum TIG-welded and sanded seamless. No casting — every curve was once something else.
Wire
Motors, panel meters, LEDs, hand-crank generators. Salvaged, repaired, given a new job.
Animate
A crank, a button, a motion sensor. It isn’t finished until it does something when you touch it.
Selected shows & press
Have one built around your story.
Commissions start with a conversation. Originals in the studio ship crated from Oakland.
All images © Nemo Gould. Credit the artist and link back when reposting; no commercial use without written permission — email nemo@nemogould.com.