Still playing with his Lego at 36 - the corporate lawyer who packed it all in to create £10,000 models.

 

Parents the world over have watched their sons playing with Lego and dreamed they'll go on to build successful careers as, say, high-flying lawyers.

Well, quite what the parents of Nathan Sawaya are now thinking - the 36-year-old quit his job as corporate lawyer in 2001 to return to his boyhood obsession - creating shapes with those colourful building blocks.

But before you smirk, the artist is proving there is more to Lego than child's play - by selling his brick-based creations for a staggering £10,000 each.

Nathan Sawaya's Lego work 'My Boy 2'. He says his art explores human emotions

This piece of Lego art of a man rising up is called Red

His works, which are shown in galleries across the globe and are in demand by top art dealers, include life-size 'sculptures' and can each use 150,000 of the familiar little bricks .

Sawaya even has his own touring exhibition, The Art of the Brick, for which he required more than 1,500,000 coloured bricks to create 30 works of art.

Key pieces in the show are his Red, Yellow, and Blue series which Nathan says explore the human emotions attached to birth, death and transformation.

He was recently offered £10,000 for a single piece.

One of Nathan Sawaya's creations from his Lego exhibition 'Brick by Brick'

Nathan Sawaya's Lego work Swimmer, created in his art studio in New York

'Most of the time, I spend between eight to 12 hours each day creating with Lego, but it depends on what I'm working on.

'Sometimes when I get really into a sculpture, I can spend 18 hours at a time.

'I spend a lot of time sketching out my ideas on special graph paper that has the brick shapes printed on it. Then the rest of the day is spent building.'

Buyers needn't worry about the artworks coming apart though, when Nathan is happy with a creation he rebuilds it, this time glueing the bricks together.

He spends full working days playing with Lego bricks in his New York studio where he keeps more than 1.5 million spare blocks.

Nathan Sawaya in his New York studio surrounded by his Lego art

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1259561/Still-playing-Lego-36--corporate-lawyer-packed-create-10-000-works-colourful-building-blocks.html#ixzz0iu9ItbKy

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