0 TRASH to Amazing ANIMAL SCULPTURES by Artist Bordalo II (25 Photos + Video)

Amazing! Where we see trash, this artist sees art and uses his artistic talent and incredible skills to spread his message about endless waste production by creating some of the most stunning animal sculptures out of plastic and metal waste.

Therefore, unlike most artist, Portuguese street artist Bordalo II (Artur Bordalo) doesn't have to buy his material - he scavenges it. He seeks to portray nature (animals) with the materials that threaten it, using the walls on streets and other outside surroundings as his canvas.

1. Fox

Source

0 ANTHILL SCULPTORS

AnthillArt.com makes art sculptures out of anthills. Aluminum sculptures of actual anthills to be precise. They are made by pouring the molten metal into the tunnels and chambers of the nest of anthills. (See the video at the end). And as they put it:

The result is an amazing sculpture showing the intricate detail of the nest architecture. The cast is then mounted for display on a wood base. Each display has a stainless steel plaque mounted on the base with information on the cast and a unique cast number. These make perfect displays for a home or as an educational piece for teachers and professors to display in a science classroom or laboratory.

An Anthill Cast

This cast has a very interesting structure that I haven’t seen in any of the other fire ant colony casts. Instead of having a single distinct tapering structure to it like the other casts, this cast has a large main structure and two offshoots near the ground surface: one toward the front of the display and one to the side, which almost looks like a separate distinct colony.

Cast #067 - Aluminum Fire Ant Colony Casting Back

0 WOODEN SCULPTORS BY TOM ECKERT

Tom Eckert creates everything out of wood and we mean EVERYTHING.  His sculptures are formed entirely of wood and then painted.  He uses traditional processes to carve, construct, laminate and paint his pieces.  The woods he prefers working with are basswood, linden and limewood (all very similar) chosen because they carve and paint well and are very stable.

Transcendence

Coming from a painting and drawing background, he applys some of these techniques to his sculptures.   His choice of paint is mostly waterborne lacquer applied using both spray guns and brushes.

Forms carved to suggest cloth recur in many of his pieces.  As he explains on his site: By tradition, cloth has been widely used to conceal and shroud objects in practices ranging from advertising to church rituals.  Covered forms are often more evocative - with a sense of mystery absent from the uncovered object by itself.  As he recalls: "I remember in church one Lent, as a child, being mystified while gazing at the statues shrouded with purple cloth."

He further goes on to say: “Cloth” carved of wood has much different structural qualities than real cloth. When this idea is applied to my compositions (floating book, floating cards, floating rock) a sense of the impossible happens - for me, magic.

0 THE HYPERREALIST SCULPTORS OF RON MUECK

Just when you think they couldn't get better, meet life-like sculpturist Ron Mueck.

Ronald "Ron" Mueck is an Australian hyperrealist sculptor working in the United Kingdom.

Ron was born in Australia to German parents. He began his career working on the Australian children's television program Shirl's Neighbourhood. He was the creative director and made, voiced and operated the puppets Greenfinger the Garden Gnome, Ol' Possum, Stanley the snake and Claude the Crow amongst many others. The show was made for Channel 7 Melbourne between 1979 and 1984, broadcast nationally and starred the ex-lead singer of Skyhooks, Graeme "Shirley" Strachan.

Mueck's early career was as a model maker and puppeteer for children's television and films, notably the film Labyrinth for which he also contributed the voice of Ludo, and the Jim Henson series The Storyteller.
Mueck moved on to establish his own company in London, making photo-realistic props and animatronics for the advertising industry. Although highly detailed, these props were usually designed to be photographed from one specific angle hiding the mess of construction seen from the other side. Mueck increasingly wanted to produce realistic sculptures which looked perfect from all angles.

In 1996 Mueck transitioned to fine art, collaborating with his mother-in-law, Paula Rego, to produce small figures as part of a tableau she was showing at the Hayward Gallery. Rego introduced him to Charles Saatchi who was immediately impressed and started to collect and commission work. This led to the piece which made Mueck's name, Dead Dad, being included in the Sensation show at the Royal Academy the following year. Dead Dad is a silicone and mixed media sculpture of the corpse of Mueck's father reduced to about two thirds of its natural scale. It is the only work of Mueck's that uses his own hair for the finished product.

Photo: Raoul Wegat/Getty Images

0 FEATURED ARTIST: FREYA JOBBINS

Australian artist Freya Jobbins's sculptures are assemblages of used dolls parts and recycled plastic toys.  Her precision and attention to detail, results in the most captivating humanoid forms, unique pieces of art.

1 FEATURED ARTIST: CAROLE A. FEUERMAN

Carole A. Feuerman (Hartford, Connecticut, 1945) is an American artist and hyper-realistic sculptor. She currently lives and works in New York, New York. Feuerman is most known for her resin sculptures painted in oil, but she also utilizes other media such as bronze and stone. She developed a technique she calls “painting with fire” where she pours, splatters and splashes up to five different molten metals that are 2000 degrees in temperature. Most recently she has introduced photography and interactive video media as a component to her sculptural works.

She is represented by galleries both nationally and abroad, and has work in many public and private collections all over the world. She has enjoyed six museum retrospectives to date, and has been included in exhibitions at, among other venues, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, and the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, Italy.

On May 20, 2012, Feuerman unveiled her monumental sculpture "Survival of Serena" for the first time in painted bronze with New York City's Department of Parks and Recreation. Its resin sister first debuted at the Venice Biennale in 2007. The new "Survival of Serena" is the first of a series of painted bronze sculptures by the artist designed specifically for outdoor placement.

Survival of Serena 2012

0 FEATURED ARTIST: MICHELLE WIBOWO

Meet Michelle Wibowo (born 1978, Indonesia), a British sugar craft artist whose specialty is making sculpted cakes and sugar sculpture. Michelle creates award winning sugar arts and cake sculptures with an incredible attention to details and realism.

She runs a small business called Michelle Sugar Art Ltd.

She graduated from the National Bakery School and begin career in cake decorating in London. Her first international success was in October 2008 when she was awarded a gold and silver medal for her creations in International Exhibition of Culinary Art in Germany. She created a lifesize hound dog shape sugar sculpture which won her gold and picked up silver for a cake of Elizabeth I of England.

Yes, these are all edible cakes! 

It took Ms Wibowo 2 weeks to prepare and both creations have consumed more than 25 kg sugar paste (fondant).

0 WHEN ART AND TRAGEDY COLLIDES - EMMA HACK'S LATEST MASTERPIECE

Adelaide body painter Emma Hack took 18 hours to create her latest masterpiece, which uses 17 men and women to illustrate the dangers and trauma caused by speeding drivers.

The stunning piece of art was the brainchild of advertising agency Clemenger BBDO Adelaide and part of the Motor Accident Commission's new campaign, targeting low-level speeders.


Ms Hack said she treated the project - which required up to five layers of paint on her subjects' bodies - like a puzzle, to create an alternative road safety message.