The world has been desperately seeking means to reduce, reuse and recycle junk. These are attempts to make junk tolerable. A few artists and sculptors have decided to elevate junk to the level of art so that instead of simply tolerating it, we actually celebrate it! We present here 10 such amazing works of art that have been made entirely from junk.
1. Mosaic Celebrity Portraits Made From Their Junk
Jason Mecier has a unique gift. He can display a person’s junk to represent the form of that very same person! This unique ability transforms gingham fabric, crepe paper, Easter eggs, credit cards, bracelets, tampons, lip gloss, foot scrub and hundreds of other discarded junk into portraits of their owners. In some cases, it becomes hard to tell whether the portrait of a celebrity is made from his/her junk or a person becomes a celebrity once such a portrait is made!
2. Human Face Portraits Made from Junk
There is a growing electronic industry which also means a growing e-waste junk heap! Using circuit boards, resistors, switches, wires, capacitors , transistors, insulation, plastic pieces, cassettes which have been discarded along with a few old and broken toys, glitter, confetti and jewelry, Thomas Deininger has attained hall of fame by designing amazingly realistic human faces. His art has won him many awards too!
3. Jason Mecier portrait
The artist we just introduced makes a comeback here! And this time it is for faces and art made entirely from old make-up sets. This portrait of Mariah Carey is such a perfect lookalike to her. Only a closer examination reveals how she has been ‘made up’!
4. Zan Freeman made Portraits
Zan Freeman’s work seems to embody a profound truth that things which appear as worthless and random in the small picture actually contribute to something beautiful and grand in the larger picture! Rummaging through piles of junk, the artist finds thousands of apparently useless stuff which become parts of his fantastic and life-like assemblies.
5. Amy Winehouse portrait made of pills
Amy Winehouse, a popular singer known for her deep contralto singing, would have been pleased to see the tribute paid to her by an artist had she been alive. Using more than 5000 pills of various colors and hues, her portrait has been created and it bears and striking resemblance to her. The portrait measures 17 inches x 21 inches and is a truly memorable way to ensure that some pills are destined to live forever without an expiry date!
6. 3D Portraits Made From Screws
Taking art into a new dimension from painting to sculpting, artist Andrew Myers specializes in making 3 dimensional portraits with screws. The contours and features of the face are all created by the different depths the screws are screwed into. The paint comes at the end. More than 10,000 screws are utilized in every sculpture and one miss, the sculpture gets screwed!
7. Motherboard Mona Lisa
Using discarded mother boards on a frame, the world famous work of Leonardo Da Vinci, the Mona Lisa, has been created by the artist duo of Greenman and Nicobbg. Sitting at the ASUS headquarters in Taiwan, the junk-art gains beauty only when seen from a distance. We have no idea as to what price this Mona Lisa is selling for but one thing is for sure – it is definitely a master class art piece.
8. Portrait made from discarded bottle caps
There is a host of bottles out there that is discarded on a daily basis. Collecting the caps of the soda bottles, beverage containers, child-proof containers and other liquid repositories, painstaking effort is dedicated to making them into a memorable piece of art. This above instance of a self-portrait by the artist, Mary Ellen Croteau.
9. Steve Jobs Portrait Created Entirely From Apple Products
A famous proverb has undergone transformation. “An Apple a day, keeps an artist happy and gay” seems to be the motto of this portrait of Steve Jobs. It has been made entirely from all of Apple’s latest products including the MacBook Air, iPod nano pink etc. It would definitely take a long, long time for one to accumulate such Apple ‘junk’ and make one such sculpture for real! Till then, the photo model of the portrait will suffice.
10. Portraits made from floppy disks
Floppy disks are pre-historic and nobody even spares a thought for them today! But London painter, Nick Gentry, has given them a new lease of life as a painting canvas. So, instead of being buried in landfills, these floppies adorn the walls as center pieces in many homes n offices.
