This LEGO Artist Builds Masterpieces Using All Black Bricks | Obsessed | WIRED
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- čas přidán 28. 11. 2023
- "It just had this appeal to me because you can create the things you don't have." Meet Ekow Nimako, a Ghanaian-Canadian artist who uses black LEGO bricks to build jaw-dropping sculptures. While some of his masterpieces take nearly one-thousand hours to create, he has the ability to prototype a new design in just one day. We tour his home studios where he began creating his breathtaking art and explore some of his custom builds inspired by Black mythology.
Check out more of Ekow's work on TikTok: @ekownimakostudios
Director: Charlie Jordan
Director of Photography: Dave Sanders
Editor: Jordan Calig
Expert: Ekow Nimako
Creative Producer: Wendi Jonassen
Line Producer: Joseph Buscemi
Associate Producer: Brandon White
Production Manager: D. Eric Martinez
Production Coordinator: Fernando Davila
Camera Operator: Jerome W. Tan
Sound Mixer: Dave Plank
Production Assistant: Andrew Vance
Post Production Supervisor: Alexa Deutsch
Post Production Coordinator: Ian Bryant
Supervising Editor: Doug Larsen
Assistant Editor: Justin Symonds
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He is a sculptor and his medium is Lego. 🖤✨
100%
Nop, he is a Builder
No, he's not a sculptor. He doesn't chisel. But he is an artist!
He referred them as sculptures.
Sculpting you're taking stuff off, building youre adding things.
Not only an artist, but a patient collector. _Millions_ of LEGO parts are under his control.
*Ekow Nimako* deserves a spot in LEGO Hall of Fame... _if it exists._
Absolutely.
"under his control" geezus wtf, those are plastic pieces made in a factory
@@FrenchCanadianGuy
So? _He bought them_ - hence why they're under his control.
Not only that, he's a black supremacist
@@FrenchCanadianGuy He's a smart artist, takes nothing and makes something beautiful .
Idk what’s more impressive these brilliant builds or the fact he managed to find this many black pieces not faded or covered in scratches and teeth marks
Saw one of his figues, a woman riding a unicorn, at Brick Campus in Juju, South Korea last year. Legitimately incredible piece of art. The pure black is so striking and gorgeous.
I'm into Lego myself and I can tell you, he's a pro and has an amazing sense of creating organic shapes. I'm truly impressed.
that serpent lady sculpture blew my mind
I am not into lego whatsoever and i can tell you the same thing!!
@repentandbelieveinJesusChrist1 wind your neck in 🤮
Wow
Fake Sculptures
This is real talent in my opinion
why black though?
@@astroboirap black looks amazing
Ya think?
Skill
who asked for your opinion?
Wow! His pieces look like they were made out of some precious extraterrestial gemstone.
It's amazing how the pieces he makes are so organic/curvy looking, yet made out of lego.
I feel like the black bricks definitely catch the light the best. Good choice. Great art.
They also take fingerprints and show flow marks exceptionally well. On camera this doesn't really show, in rral life it's a deal breaker for me
He didn’t pick black, black picked him.
The use of the smooth tiles and the color black both bring an elegance to a medium more associated with an amalgamation of color and chaos. There are lots of things to love about the colorfulness, but I like how his art subverts that association. The artistic style works so well with the themes he works in.
since when was lego associated with an amalgamation of color and chaos
@@Kodaiva imagine a bunch of lego bricks on the floor waiting to be stepped on
@@Kodaivasince forever?
Wow this was so eloquently put! 🙌🏾
He uses black because he’s a black man who considers his skin color to be his identity. There’s nothing deep about it.
This man can create texture, shape, and life in just black bricks
Not Life!
Redundant comment
are you implying that blacks dont have texture shape nor life?
Those are some absolutely beautiful sculptures. I'm also in complete awe of his collection of incredibly well organized lego parts.
I love the appreciation for the BIONICLE and Hero Factory parts
Love how unafraid he is of integrating technic and system into his sculptures together - I feel like a lot of 'master' system builders often limit the majority of their builds to 2x4 bricks lol
Also love the casual star wars nerdness hahahaha he's brilliant 😩👌
nah you're all wrong, everyone uses technic x system
@@panboi7490 lol tell that to all the builds you see at lego stores and lego discovery centres constructed primarily of glue and 2x4s. Or artists like Nathan Sawaya. It's cool, but it's also at a certain point akin to pixel art that doesn't broach interesting parts usage at all
@@lester44444 YOU ARE SO WRONG.
@@panboi7490 he's right. they just voxelize the models. The most "complex" part ends up being assembling the model. This guy uses a very wide variety of bricks to achieve very complex surfaces.
@@geort45 What? No !
Props to this dude for channeling his culture into Lego. This is a man proud of his ancestry
Why not kung foo? Are these not your people? I can see you’re not proud of your history karate man.
@wedgefeyhong9756 lmao what are you on about
thats the only thing they do... cry about why their life is messed up and blame a fictional white man for it!@@Nillioh
@@wedgefeyhong9756you’re white
Yeah culturally appropriating lego invented by white people
they need to bring this guy in and let him make an official lego set
Nah
It would be cool to see his creations animated into a series. Or designs for a sci fi/fantasy movie.
yasss I see that too
Look at those beautiful ancestral masks, winged figures etc 😭 Monochrome Textures. Amazing! I want such a spacious, niche studio
Do LEGO even imagine that their locking tiles would take this format. This man has given LEGO a new purpose.
Did Lego imagine people would build things with Legos? I’m thinking yes
Yes, lego have done this in the past, hes just putting his own style into it, his own little niche
I imagine that LEGO could never have predicted this, but they knew something like this would happen. They built a toy system that was meant to unlock imagination and make it material.
I don't think so. Lego has always been an artistic medium.
What insanity are you talking about?
Eh he hasn’t given lego a new purpose
The organic shapes he makes is just phenomenal. To know each piece and how it functions is the same as a painter knowing each brush and tool in their kit.
Just organizing that supply... How would he find the parts he needs, like a 1000 types or more in one color.
Nothing better than working a draining stressful week at my desk and finding treasures like this. What an inspiration! He knows his Lego stuff too! Very cool!
"Are you serious?! It's Lego." The man is an artist!
This guy is a one of a kind rare talent. His art is exceptional.
Awesome
Till AI will do it and provide with the building manual.
He's in touch with his ancestors and they speak through him in his art. Absolutely amazing we need more like him. 😢
VIctim mindset
@@devinpledger2251this response doesn’t make any sense
Stuff making up nonsense, you imagined that @@devinpledger2251
@@devinpledger2251Racist mindset
@Clorox_Bleach_ Chlorine drinker mindset
True, "Gifts should not go to waste".
This Brother is an inspiring gift to the art world himself!
Been following this guy on instagram for 4-5 years now. He’s so creative and fantastic. Love seeing everything he creates
What’s his IG
Ive never seen lego pieces like that before look custom made , all i know is lego bricks . Still an amazing talent, and beautiful artwork.
Different sets have different shaped pieces now. With the star wars collectors there are way more black pieces available 👽
ahahahah are you like mentally impaired or something?
Look up the set 10294 RMS Titanic.
Now do the white artist using all white bricks
This is the most beautiful thing ive ever seen. The art. The artist. Just gorgeous, beautiful perfection.
Settle down spaz
@@all0utmetal735 You have a playlist for kids exercise videos.... Pipe down
I never thought Lego could become high art but here it is. 😅👍🏻
For some reason i always thought it was high art in someway and yes heee it is lol
TREMENDOUS !!!! Its cool how the shiny black pieces appear to reflect the colors of the room their in 😎
*they're
@@Bystronicman08 😅
'In moonlight black boys look blue'
@@Vercingetorix504 nah, correcting people’s grammar is actually helpful in today’s day and age.
I’m 33, and the number of friends I have who do not know the difference between “lose” and “loose” is astounding to me. My niece is extremely high level in school (she’s qualified for national level programs that have incredibly high standards, has been taking college level classes since she was 14, and is looking at full ride scholarships to several top colleges in the U.S.). Her grammar is atrocious.
This new thing of auto correct has lead to a generation devoid of basic grammar and understanding of proper syntax.
@@mr.doctorcaptain1124 I'm in agreement. It's a lost cause now.
Lego has come a long way since I first started playing with it 50+ years ago. There used to be a very limited selection of block shapes available.
Black Legos Matter
LEGO
@@ocallaghancolin94🤓
All legos matter. FACT
I love how you used “legos” LMAO
😂
Get this dude on Lego Masters asap
😮 Truly!
Living it big by playing with LEGO... Respect Mr., Respect.
i dunno if you guys realize how difficult building with just one color can be, imagine keeping track of everything that's going on. it's why all the support structures in sets are bright random colors
Yes, it is really LREALLY impressive
These lego sculptors are some of the most beautiful works of art I've seen! I love seeing lego used as a medium for art but don't see it as often as I wish. Seeing these designs in all black, outlining his culture and passion. It's truly beautiful and I hope he continues on this path of creation!
"Not as what they are but what they could be" is pretty profound tbh
it's weird, but I like that there's a little bit of dust on some of the pieces he's showing off in his collection. It's how you know he's a real LEGO guy 😅
Collecting dust cuz no one buys them.
@@lindinle either that or he keeps the good ones, people buy anything that is labeled art im sure it would get snatched up.
@@fourdeep6561 if he kept the good ones his place would be empty.
@@lindinle 🤣🤣🤣
@@lindinleso explain how his Lego spare parts alone is 50 times your net worth if he’s not selling anything
Man. Getting to be a celebrated artist and also just playing with legos all day is awesome. good for him.
As a Ghanaian 🇬🇭. Not suprised at all. Very creative people
Nigerian here 🇳🇬. Love our West African brethren 🇬🇭
Wow, this is a serious artist. I love how lighting, shadows, reflections are incorporated into his designs.
A GIFT SHOULD NOT GO TO WASTE. Powerful, Beautiful and inspiring. Thank you for sharing your talent with us.
0:22 This deranged mindfreak just guffawed at our layman' ambivalence concerning "Lego" versus "Legos".
???
@@Theologica_ ?!?!
I know it’s crazy he reacted like that. So full of himself
@@BarracusObamus I think you guys are reading too much into it. Besides even as a normal “layperson” we all know it’s criminal to say legos.
@@Theologica_ He said "are you serious?!" That's not condescending? And then he cited it's etymological root as if he were Noam Chomsky or something. He is definitely full of himself.
This is so inspirational. My 16 year old African American son loves Legos and desires to be a Master Lego builder. Representation truly matters. Thanks for being a mirror to so many children of color.
What a talented artist. Very cool stuff!
Ekow's friends and family never take their shoes off inside his house.
😂
He is so eloquent and articulate that it is astounding that he is so precise in his expressions.
The self-awareness to say that it's a privilege speaks volumes of his eloquence, and that he's a geek makes this such a great story. If you think about it, sculpting is really just subtractive art and his art is just an inverse of that, additive art.
There’s a touch of H.R. Giger in what he does. I love it!
This is beautiful for adults and imaginative for kids. And it can't be broken if dropped per se, just rebuilt into the next project.
This is amazing. I wouldnt know how to get back into lego besides messing around with the computer program for Lego, but this guy has made a style in his artwork, that is unique! By the time he gets the spine/frame done you can see how he executes it, especially with tile pieces and detailed parts
Do you have workshops? This is different kind of art. Children would love this,and there imagination would take this to another level. This is beautiful!🖤🖤😘
wow his creations really look like multi million dollar art
Does he sell them at a auction? How can we buy his art? His Lego skills is at an amazing level. True artist thi$! 😊✨
I wonder if it comes with instructions 😂
His works probably cost 100 times more than he paid for that lego,
I’d imagine they sell for thousands at auction
@@alphaenterprise2232they better do, we talknhundreds of hours of craftmanship
LEGO’s creations never look so realistic, until a man of melanin used his creativity with their blocks.
He has breath new life into LEGO for another century.
I love -Legos- Lego and have watched many videos about very creative people who build unique things but Ekow is the most impressive that I've seen. Most of the videos are showing amazing toy sets, but these are works of art.
I think he misunderstands why lego minifigures are yellow. Its because no one has yellow skin. It was a conscious choice the by the lego group to not glorify one group over the others, as it was made to be kind of a "self insert" color. It is was too expensive to pump out wide varieties of skin tones especially when the minifigure was introduced. Since then, the yellow figure just became synonymous with lego. I dont really get how equating the simpsons and lego have anything to do with things lol, but regardless a fantastic artist and builder.
I agree. Lego about to get canceled for having yellow(white in his eyes) legos.
Pretty weird for him to say since there are also actual white legos and black legos lol but now white and yellow are white?
This is so amazing. Thank you for giving this man a platform. He is a master of his craft
If I ever become rich I’m totally buying one of his pieces, these are incredible!
you can do it on your own, man
@@illia144 yeah just like how you could paint something by an artist yourself, right? Think before you post
@@illia144 Yeah... if you have thousands of hours of time available to practice and perfect the craft like this guy that is.
Wow. This is just amazing. I have never been impressed by an artist like this!
This guy is such a perfect marketing product.
I don't say that in a negative sens. I love marketing.
His branding is so clean (house design, clothes style, the way he talk, the meaning he gives to his art, etc...)
Everything harmonious, everything top quality.
Nothing but respect, and I'm not even the targeted audience.
This is so impressive! Talented creator, and well done video!
This is properly unbelievable art. And you gotta love the way this artist stays absolutely chill about it. Massive props
this is probably the best lego sculptors ive ever seen and this man is just as sculpted. man dont miss the gym. good for him!
This that one kid who you play Legos with and he takes all the bricks of a certain color because he “needs them.”
But I did need them
You mean Lego
dude literally said it's NEVER legos, how hard is it?
I cannot even express the level of insane talent there... flawless...
I can't even begin to explain how much this amazes and inspires me.
The sculptures are almost as gorgeous as the artist.
Ayo u aint be coal burnin is u Cristina?
Get you some water to quench that thirst.
@@reduXstereowhy are people so weird about compliments these days?
This is some seriously incredible talent! I loved the technique he used for hair on one of the sculptures.
I don't know if Ekow teaches, but if he was a professor, I'm sure he'd have the most popular class at a university lol
This is soooooo cool.
These look so sick, working as a Lego artist was a childhood dream for me, im 100% buying all the Lego’s I can once I have the financial means
I have no words to describe your art, other than the world has been enriched by your presence in it.
I love the all black philosophy and this is incredible
Absolutely gorgeous artwork!
Wow he dropped so many gems of wisdom in this. Amazing talent ❤
It's obvious that he's obsessed but I think it's with colour rather than lego
I’m truly amazed and inspired! Beautiful artwork
Wow, super impressive. I create lego too, but this is next level. I can image this in an art galley.
Really cool and creative designs. I like the starship pieces the most.
The ancient African gods are working through him. The inspiration and passion is real
His Lego art is AMAZING such talent BRAVO👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
His works remind me a lot of H.R. Giger's. So freaking awesome
Willing to bet that he could build a Lego H.R. Giger Alien...
He's a real life master-builder!! 🤩
Finally an artist worth hearing about lol. Very talented all his masterpieces are unique and create a reaction
Beyond amazing. This takes true talent, dedication and vision.
Such an amazing view of Black Canadian Art 👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
It’s a Lego advertisement. You’re probably soo cool you only shop at black owned businesses.
@wedgefeyhong9756 Thanks for this comment, I'm going to take the next step and shop at exclusively black owned business 🙆🏾♀️. You made such good points! The community appreciates you.
he has such a beautiful vibe
I would LOVE to see some of these made into sets. I'd buy it in an instant.
Very impressive! This guy is a real artist.
Most of the time, i hate modern art... but this is... real talent.❤
Just amazing.
One the best LEGO artists in the world
Gifts should not go to waste. Excellent statement and, beautiful artwork.
Similar to this artist, my son has been nurturing his affinity to Lego since he was three years old. As a parent, I have instructed him to only build the sets as they come, and then display them on shelves in his room. After watching this video however, I gave him carte blanch permission to dismantle any of his sets that he sees fit, and utilize the pieces as just that, pieces, with which to build whatever his mind conjures up. He was thrilled, and immediately left my side to go build again and let his creativity flow, rather than await the purchase of a new Lego set. Thank you so much for highlighting this brilliant artist. This video has already changed the life of a five year old and the countless others that his creativity will reach throughout his lifetime. Thank you!!
This person talks about their child like some kind of robot and its weird af. Oh, he got a notarized permit to build his sets like he wants? How incredibly magnanimous of you, freak
What a fascinating, talented and creative man. Thanks for a great video!
LEGO minifigures were originally chosen to be yellow in order to promote the idea of racial neutrality, it has nothing to do with The Simpsons. In fact the writer of Simpsons (Matt Groening) only made his characters yellow to have them stand out more and look more cartoonish. And I guess he didn't think too deep about changing the color of other characters that weren't white and especially since they were added later, and tbh any other color pops and creates way more contrast than the beige "white" skin tone. Great artist by the way!
His LEGO art is truly amazing.
Extraordinary!
His creations are absolutely brilliant.
Extremely detailed and designed with meaningful connection.
It's the genuine passion to the art that makes it special.. unique and this guy definitely has it 💯.
I would love to own a piece.
Such art! I will never again see New Zealand rugby in the same way
He's the pike the living embodiment of the black panther. I mean look at those tattoos! Stunning. Look at the art pieces! Gorgeous.
Those studios are so cool !
So much LEGO !
I love to see such perfection.
This is such an incredibly creative idea for art