Burning Love (5 pics)

Chicago-based architectural designer and multimedia artist Pei-San Ng has an interesting hobby. "I love making models out of sticks," she says. "With limited resources, Nathan (her husband) suggested using matches instead of balsa. Thus began my matches series. With every piece finished, came an urge to burn it."

Made up of about 2,500 match sticks and taking a total of 24 hours to complete, Ng created Passion, or the word love hand drawn and spelled out in vintage type. "Love on fire represents romance and passion or destruction and jealousy. It is raw and gritty," she says.

Compare that to this piece titled Crush, which is composed of shorter, pink vintage matches. "Crushes are small, cute, beautiful and there came many in our lives," Ng explains.

Bonus. In addition to her Love series, check out Ng's burning sneakers, which were made and then burned in honor of a deceased friend.

"In Chinese culture, we burn paper money so the spirit can take these notes with them to the afterlife," she says. "These papers are called joss paper. In contemporary culture, they have included paper cell phone, paper credit cards and paper boats. I made a pair of sneakers for Chris to take with. He loves his sneakers and he always have the perfect pair to go with his outfit. He was fashionable. These sneakers were in his Tribute show entitled “Tapedek: The Afters Cool Show” at CAD on April 9th, 2010. One of the pair was burned at the end of the show with a gathering of his friends."

Pei-San Ng

Tags: Burning, Love, art, matches, sticks

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Comment by Alyssa Anda on June 21, 2011 at 11:22am: That is SO awesome! :D

Comment by Thomas Montblanc on January 18, 2011 at 1:34pm: so hot!!! :-D

Comment by Natasha on October 19, 2010 at 2:47pm: These are so beautiful...really loving it..great idea!

Comment by Arlene on October 19, 2010 at 1:55pm: Love this! You're a wonderful artist, Pei! Looking forward to seeing your future projects!

Comment by Stephen M. Barrett on October 19, 2010 at 11:30am: Very Hot.

Comment by Amy Wong on October 18, 2010 at 10:37pm: It is tempting to burn it. And the title is perfect. 'Burning Love'. LIke literally! LoL!

Comment by PANDA JU on October 18, 2010 at 6:10pm: For lack of a better word: LOVE!

Visit http://peisanng.com to see the artist's other work. But the 'LOVE' piece is clearly the most striking and remains my favorite.

Comment by Eugene on October 18, 2010 at 5:11pm: Wow...totally impressed. Great work, Pei!

Comment by Marica on October 18, 2010 at 11:59am: Wow..Great Idea!

Comment by sAm on October 18, 2010 at 10:25am: It'd be cool to watch this burn...