Celebration of Maturity

I have created two pieces of artwork that represent the life cycle of human and nature, incorporating candle wax as a medium, which also has a strong message of time passing in itself. As the candles melt they create icicles of wax, constantly shifting and totally changing in shape. Seeing an art work by Barbara Nasto, I immediately found myself emotionally moved by the three dimensional texture and the organic patterns from liquid candle wax residue. The first piece of wax sculpture, called Celebration of Maturity is my own interpretation of a big birthday cake for celebrating 18 years of life using 18 candles. Each candle symbolizes each year that I have lived on earth. I have selected two clear plastic containers and a glass jar as a base for the melting candles. Moreover, the colours of the candles, mostly warm colours, represent my burning passion for art throughout my 18th years of life so far.
When creating this, my biggest challenge was to control the amount of wax on a specific desirable place for aesthetic reasons. To solve this problem, I used a lighter to have control of the wax residue falling on my work. The use of the lighter effectively sped up the progress of the melting candles. Waiting the candles to completely melt down required my patience and I felt as if I was testing my endurance. This project offered me quite time of meditation to look back at my 18 years of life and what I have been through to finally become an adult.