Creating beautiful wooden sculptures from reclaimed and discarded wood is a thoughtful idea that gives art a new meaning. The artist uses photographs to make these marvelous hand-carved structures using reclaimed, genuine colored wood.
The artist
The artist behind these magnificent pieces is Diederick Kraaijeveld. The Dutch artist, born in the year 1963, has already built some classical structures. To name a few are, an Airstream trailer, a Porsche 911, a pair of Chuck Tailors, and many more. And, all this just with vintage reclaimed wood. A self-taught artist, he calls his pieces “photo realistic sculptures with originally colored salvaged wood.” He just uses the original wood without using any paint. Kraaijeveld uses the term Oudhout, meaning Old Wood in Dutch. His work has been shown in galleries in Amsterdam, Holland, the US (Carmel CA, Denver CO and New York NY), Switzerland (Basel), the UK (London) and UAE (Dubai).
The inspiration
All this marvelous art comes from his fondness of collecting old wood. Collected from anywhere and everywhere from century old painted planks to old Amsterdam canal mansions to rundown farms and faraway coasts, the artist turns these useless torn pieces of wood into fine sculpture.
The artwork
As unbelievable and mesmerizing it sounds, a look at the artwork surprises you even more, more so because of such great art is made only from discarded wood. Diederick Kraaijeveld is one artist in whose workplace you would not find a palette of paint, instead a huge warehouse of old wooden planks forms the base of each of his artwork. He made “A sixties queen”, a portrait based on a 1964 photograph of queen Beatrix of Holland, which was made out of the wood from a cheese factory and parts of a sailing boat. An all-time favorite is pair of All Stars Grey sneakers, a 130 centimeters wide monumental piece, which was constructed out of wooden flooring from an 18th century Leiden canal mansion. If you look up for Close up Audi R8 sculpture, you would find a unique structure highlighting only the headlamp of the car. It is beautiful and justifiably shows the stylish part of the car.
Green aspects
This great idea of using discarded wood has contributed to the art world. The discarded wood, which would otherwise be disposed off, has now been used in an interesting way. This is a great way of controlling pollution caused by burning wood. Nice work Mr. Diederick Kraaijeveld!
Look into this gallery to see more fascinating artwork.