Wednesday, 17 December 2014

Sophie De Oliveira Barata



The project that Sophie De Oliveira Barata created is the artificial limb project. She creates personalised and realistic artificial limbs for people who amputees. She makes ones that either blend in with the body or those that are unique and reflect the person. She founded this project in 2011.Sophie De Oliveira Barata studied special-effects for film at the University of the Arts London. After that she worked as a sculptor for 8 years, created prosthetic limbs.

 For this type of work the type of artistic skills that are needed are sculpting skills, measuring skills, observational skills, colour skills, etc. This is so the limb looks its best. Measuring and sculpting skills are one of the most important because you don’t want to have one limb longer or bigger than the other. Also the structure of the limb needs to be like the other good limb.

She uses different materials which include; silicone, plastic, metal, wood and crystals. The material of the limb depends on the type of design chosen. If the client wants a robotic limb for example this would have specific skills. She often collaborates with different artist often with ones that have different skills to her like woodwork skills, laser cutting skill, and metal work skills.

To start making the prosthesis limbs she takes a cast of the limb that is good, or she uses a donor limb. Next she will take pictures, colour readings and will discuss any ideas for the limb and how different it should look. Then a test piece will be made so that it is made sure that the limb will fit. If the client is not happy with it she will make alterations to it. She will keep making alterations until the client is satisfied with the fitting. She will then involve the client in designing the limb. After that she will go ahead and make the limb for the client. She involves the person wearing the alternative limb in all the processes so they can decide how they want it to be.

In my opinion I like Sophie De Barata’s work because it’s unique. All the designs that she makes are personalised to fit the clients’ needs. Each limb she makes looks really aesthetically pleasing. If I were to get a prosthesis made I would make it look realist, so it blends in with my body but at the same time it would have gems and diamonds going down it.










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