“I find it so sad and horrifying that these 50 Heroes seem to have fallen out of contemporary cultural memory,” says Meyer. “My intent for both the Heroes Project and this book is to expose a younger generation to these Heroes whose contributions, talent and even existence have been forgotten or perhaps nearly lost in today’s digital world.”
Originally conceived as an installation for the annual DIFFA (Design Industry Foundation to Fight AIDS) dinner, Meyer’s Heroes Project went on to show in New York, Miami, and Los Angeles. In creating each portrait, Meyer conducted extensive research, ploughing through books and newspaper archives to gain intimate knowledge of the men and women he was depicting. “I immersed myself in their lives,” he says. HEROES includes biographies of each figure based upon his research.
To create his 3D portraits, Meyer blended new and old techniques ranging from terracotta to eglomise to papier-mâché to computer-generated collage, to name only a few. He felt it important that the technique, materials and style of each work be as diverse as possible. He says, “I employed everything I could muster up, including drawing, painting, sculpture, photography — all combined in various forms to create works that were uniquely different —to give the appearance that each object was made by different hands.”
The book is distributed worldwide by Simon & Schuster and is also available on amazon and through Tra Publishing’s website at www.trapublishing.com. Collector’s and Art editions of the book are also available from the publisher.
