Discover the Intricate Metalwork of Artist Myles Nurse

As an art student at Georgia State University in 2015, Myles Nurse constructed a pyramid out of cotton swabs. “Little Q-tips actually made a really solid sculpture,” recalls the Brooklyn artist, who would go on to try a similar approach with metal—welding small steel rods into intricate compositions, most of them functional objects. 

But only when he moved into his own 800-square-foot Ridgewood, Queens, studio in 2019 did his work find room to grow. He began coating the sculptures in colorful spray paint and incorporating words and phrases into the metalwork. “There’s more to look at than just the piece itself,” he notes. “There’s subtext within it.” Many examples from the series, which has since expanded to include tables, chairs, shelves, lamps, and fruit bowls, are now for sale via Open Source, a direct-to-consumer platform created by New York–based furniture adviser and curator Raquel Cayre (raquelcayre.com). And while they might appear on the verge of collapse, they’re all load-bearing. “I want people to understand that a lot of one small thing can be very supportive,” says Nurse, drawing a timely comparison to grassroots organizing. “Each individual piece is integral.” myles.studio