Jud Turner's Newest Trilobite

Here's one of Jud Turner's latest trilobite-inspired creations, "Trilo-femoral-mechnicus". It is another beautiful example of one man's obsession with those mysterious creatures from deep time. Impressively, Jud takes our planet's ancient past and propells it into the future, and the result is both staggering and sublime.

More Trilobite Sculptors

Trilobites' power as a tool for inspiration is on the increase, if the growing number of people creating their own trilobite effigies is any indication. More and more often, the visual pleasure of trilobites' architectural symmetry spreads into the lives and repertoires of artists of all ages.

For some artists, this work is serious business, while for others the creation of a trilobite is an act of exploration and play. What strange curiosity guides the human hand to revisit the vanished creatures from the depths of the seas of our ancient world?

Ernst Haekel at The Trilobite Show

The beautiful trilobites of Ernst Haekel are the most recent addition to the increasingly amazing online exhibit called The Trilobite Show. This site is the collaborative curatorial effort of Michel Gagne and myself, both avid trilobite enthusiasts, and was created to showcase the most compelling trilobite images we've found or created. So for there are seven galleries of photos, sculptures, drawings and etchings from throughout the ages, and now the trilobites of Ernst Haekel, the German scientist, philosopher and artist featured previously at triloblog. His are some of the most stunning trilobite images ever created.

Triloblog and Jud Turner at Gagneint.com

Triloblog and the art of Jud Turner have been featured at the website of my good friend Michel Gagne. Michel's article points to an additional feature of Jud's sculptures as part of The Trilobite Show, an ongoing collaboration between Michel and myself, showcasing some of the most compelling trilobite art and artists from the ages including the masterful etchings of Jaochim Barrande, and the incredible photography of Peter Cameron. The Trilobite Show is shaping up to be a truly stellar collection of trilobite imagery, and continues to develope it's unique character. Take some time to enjoy it!

Jud Turner's Cybernetic Trilobites

I'm not the only one fascinated by trilobites, nor am I the only person ever to attempt to bring these long-extinct arthropods back from their world and into ours. Though it's doubtful that any one without a functioning time machine will ever see a living trilobite, people like Jud Turner are compelled to produce trilobites in effigy. As with all creative endeavours, the stimulus of the natural world becomes infused the artist's idiosyncrasies creating the synergy that is artistic expression. In Turner's case, paleontology melds with cybernetics and the steampunk aesthetic, resulting in compelling and beautiful monuments to our planet's past and future.

The symmetry and elegance of trilobite form is effortlessly amalgamated with iron's abrupt coarseness and durability and the results are stunning. Jud's combination of technological, paleontological and imaginative elements brings us a fresh take on sculptures of life from the ancient Earth.

Sometimes I Make Trilobites

Okay, I confess, my personal interest in trilobites extends beyond passive observation. Sometimes I make trilobites of varying degrees of paleontological accuracy. The creation above was commissioned by my friend who wanted something that was not necessarily a representation of any actual trilobite fossil, so this is what I made for him.

I've also made some attempts at creating speculative visions of trilobites as they may have appeared while they were living millions of years ago, as well as enlarged versions of fossilized trilobites. Many of these sculptures form part of The Trilobite Show, an online exhibit created in collaboration between myself and multidisciplinary artist Michel Gagne.

Most of my sculptures are created using hand made wire armatures to give them structural support beyond that afforded by the polymers used in the sculpting process. The armatures inside the trilobites I've created are highly elaborate themselves, and some seem to have their own vitality.

These works can take anywhere from a three to seventy hours to complete, depending on their complexity and accuracy. So now you know the truth. Sometimes I make trilobites.

Antarctic Isopod

Recently, my friend Willem returned from McMurdo Station in Antarctica, where he had been attaching cameras to seals in order to monitor their night time fishing habits, and he showed me this image he took of a Giant Isopod, glyptonotus antarcticus. Its superficial resemblence to a trilobite helps us to imagine what they may have looked like when they were living, millions of years ago. Willem said he thought of me immediately when he saw it, and I was very glad to have the opportunity to look at it, as well as many other images from his stay, including some great underwater footage of hunting seals.