Pizza boxes? Crochet? Bits of Lego? Forget watercolours, oil paints and marble, here are some artists pushing boundaries in the art world by working in some very unconventional materials
Paint and canvas are old news and no one knows this better than the artists breaking forward with the use of unique media in their work. These off-the-wall works of art have something that those created out of traditional materials don’t, and that is the message that the medium itself can add to the overall experience of the work.
What do we mean? Well, in the work of New York-based Japanese artist Yuken Teruya, for example, shopping bags are daintily cut up to create delicate thought-provoking mini sculptures that lead viewers to think about consumerism and materialism. Maurizio Savini’s bubblegum sculptures of animals, meanwhile, really are wonderfully strange – the ubiquitous material, found so often jammed under park benches or sticking to our shoes, creates so many possible interpretations – from the transient nature of the product itself (chew it or melt it and it breaks down) reflecting the endangered nature of our wildlife, or even to the juxtaposition of such an iconic man-made product with the fauna of the natural world. The artist himself has been quoted as liking it for the way it reminds him of his youth – as well as the numerous senses we engage when chewing it.
Tell you more, we hear you ask? Don’t fret – in order to quench your curiosity, here are eight artists around the world who are using unusual media.
Yuken Teruya
What: Paper Trees
Where: The Forbidden Forest
Yuken Teruya is a Japanese artist based in New York whose work reflects the history of his origins, Okinawa. Teruya primarily uses rubbish and everyday items to create his artworks: think loo paper rolls, newspapers and old pizza boxes. He transforms these unlikely treasures into the daintiest of arworks, such as the piece we’ve showcased here, of a tree carefully made out of a McDonald’s paper bag. Modest items are critical in communicating Teruya’s message, demonstrating a sense of conflict between us and our environment.
In fact, in Teruya’s work we come across trees time and time again; they are made out of shopping bags and paper rolls (essentially objects that are created through the destruction of trees), further highlighting our over indulgent consumer attitudes.
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Maurizio Savini
What: Gum Sculptures
Where: The land of 3,000 White and Pink pieces of Bubble Gum
Ever wondered what an alligator or a startled gorilla made out of bubble gum might look like? Wonder no more thanks to the Italian sculptor Maurizio Savini, who is known for his use of the wonderful pink substance as a medium for sculptures. This bizarre use of medium has led to Savini’s work being showed in over 100 group and 50 solo exhibitions internationally. Not that this material is without its risks – Savini’s first exhibit collapsed after just three months. Why? The sugar content in the gum ended up destroying the foundation. For each work, Savini and his two assistants use almost 3,000 individual pieces of bubble gum. However, not one piece is ‘chewed’ (sighs of relief, all round) but instead are heated by Savini so that they can be easily moulded.
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Tom Deininger
What: Large scale Recycled Rubbish
Where: The waves
Hailing from Boston, Tom Deininger uses recycled rubbish to create museum-scale artworks which, in his own words, “help him process the mayhem… [although] maybe it’s just adding to the confusion.” As well as being an artist, Deininger is an environmentalist, which is not hard to spot since his his love of surf as well as the ocean is fairly evident in the works he produces. The waves made out of plastic demonstrate his hate of the world’s consumerism and how it effects the ocean.
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Nathan Sawaya
What: The Art of The Brick – LEGO
Where: Lego Land? If only!
From real-sized arcade games to functioning fountains, monochrome life-sized figures, superheroes, reinterpretations of classical artworks and even dresses, American artist Nathan Sawaya’s innovative creations are made up of the popular child’s toy, LEGO bricks. His aim? To bring out our inner child and elevate this common object into something completely new. Previously a corporate lawyer, Sawaya is the first artist to attempt to create life size sculptures of people from LEGO bricks, leading to his distinctive exhibition called, ‘THE ART OF THE BRICK’. He’s even had his sculptures installed on the Whitehouse’s lawn, where they’ve hung out with none other than Barack Obama.
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Erika Iris Simmons
What: Old Cassette Tapes
Where: Second hand shops
For the Elder Millennials out there and beyond, remember how annoying it was when your cassette tape got jammed in the player, and all those reams and reams of shiny black tape spooled out in big, messy loops? Well, American artist Erica Iris Simmons, a child of the 80s, remembers all too well, and her portraits of celebrities (mainly musicians, obvs, including Bob Marley, Kurt Cobain and The Beatles) are created out of the iconic material, with those shiny black reams of tape spooling out into silhouettes, faces and flowing hair.
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Agata Oleksiak
What: Crochet covered everything
Where: Woodstock?
Agata Oleksiak from Poland is on a mission to covers anything and everything in crotchet, from people (known specifically as wearable sculptures) to cars and buildings. She believes the structure of crochet mimics that of our bodies and minds – e.g. that we are stronger knitted together – and she explores this idea through brightly-coloured yarn. She sees the material as a typically feminine one, and so her sculptures also aim to challenge feminine stereotypes (some more subtly, others less so – but always cheekily and with great flair).
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Jason Mecier
What: Profiles using food and waste
Where: Your local supermarkets and rubbish bins
Los Angeles-based mosaic artist Jason Mecier is probably best known for his use of trash, random objects and fatty foods (noodles, candy, burgers, pasta, pretzels). He uses these to create kitschy portraits of various subjects, usually celebrity profiles, which run the gamut from a rather fetching trash Lindsay Lohan (complete with empty ketchup bottles), to a cucumber Jimmy Fallon, a noodle Donatella Versace and a candy Ellen DeGeneres. For Mecier, anything goes when it comes to potential materials – toothbrushes, dolls, beads, even beans and corn.
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Jean Shin
What: Left over or Broken Objects
Where: That disused hospital on the edge of town
A wave made out of shiny LP records. Chandelier-like sculptures made up of 35mm slides. A floor mosaic made out of the souls of 400 broken shoes. Jean Shin, from South Korea, utilizes a wide range of items, using everything from polaroids to prescription pill bottles collected from hospitals. Shin’s aim is to create a theme of community, done so by the repetitive use of the same object. Not only do these sculptures reflect the life of the individual (who has perhaps donated a shoe or a prescription pill bottles) but also the struggles we face as a community (as in the case of the prescription pill bottles and our tendency to over medicate).
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Images courtesy of @dixelpizel, @biaggisandra, @masos_photography, @giagoilmago, @dlupe, @champagnemaker, @petesouza, @blockmanclark, @erika_iris_art, @oleknyc, @jasonmecier and @jean.shin
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