Captives is an ongoing series of digital and physical sculptures by Quayola and a contemporary homage to Michelangelo’s unfinished series “Prigioni” (1513-1534) and his technique of “non-finito”. The project explores tensions and equilibrium between form and matter, man-made objects of perfection and complex, chaotic forms of nature. In this series mathematical functions and processes describe computer-generated geological formations, endlessly evolving and morphing into classical figures resulting into life-size ‘unfinished’ sculptures.

In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped, and perfect in attitude and action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it to the other eyes as mine see it. The best artist has that thought alone which is contained within the marble shell; the sculptor’s hand can only break the spell to free the figures slumbering in the stone. The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection. Michelangelo (1501)