20 Artists Who Took Art To The Next Level

Where there is an idea, there is a way to express it – at least when it comes to art. Artists can come in many forms disguised as your regular barista who can make amazing latte art, 2D and even 3D, digital artists who make stunning QR codes that jump out at you, or very patient people who make amazing origami strucures from paper or dollar bills.

Then, there are artists that create art out of non-regular materials, they create animal sculptures from fruit, silky and flowy sculptures from wood, and life out of inanimate resin. In this post, we’d like to look at 20 more artists who use very unconventional mediums to portray their love of art and skills.

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Toilet Paper Rolls. Anastassia Elias uses toilet paper rolls to create miniature scenes of life. She cuts out the scene from paper and places it inside the roll creating a silhouette of life inside a paper roll. (Image Source: Anastassia Elias)

3D subjects. Alexa Meade paints humans or objects to to look like 2D photographs. She paints directly on her subjects and manipulates the shadows in a way, that when it is photographed, it turns 2D. Want more? Check out these artworks that are totally not photographs. (Image Source: Alexa Meade)

Human Body. Cecilia Webber uses human bodies to create her digital photographic images, specifically naked human bodies painted strategically to create repetitive patterns that reflect a plant or creature for one of her many masterpieces. (Image Source: Cecilia Webber)

Dice. Frederic McSwain created this portrait as a tribute to his friend, Tobias Wong, a Canadian artist and designer who died from suicide (while sleepwalking). The portrait was made using 13,138 dice – one for each day of Tobias’ short 35 years. (Image Source: Miller Taylor)

Land. Cornelia Konrads works are inspired by land art and she is widely known for her site-specific art. She brings art outdoors by choosing a specific place and installing her structures, floating in mid-air! (Image Source: Cornelia Konrads)

Cassette Tapes. Erika Iris Simmons uses old cassette tape to create popular celebrity portraits. She likes to preserve old technologies such as cassette tapes that are no longer being used. With the tapes, she recreates portraits of celebrities such as John Lennon or Marilyn Monroe. (Image Source: iri5)

Matchsticks. Stanislav Aristov uses burnt matchsticks and bend them to his desired shapes before editing photographs of them via Photoshop. (Image Source: Stanislav Aristov)

Paper Books. Guy Laremee erodes paper books in defiance of how everyone else uses books, as a way to accumulate knowledge. Nonetheless, the beautiful sculptures he makes out of these books can really blow your mind. More book art sculptures here. (Image Source: Guy Laremee)

Pencils. Jennifer Maestre has always been attracted to sea urchins because of its beauty despite their dangerous spikes. A less-dangerous artificial alternative, sharpened pencils have thus become her main material for creating sculptures. (Image Source: Jennifer Maestre)

Old Watch Parts. Susan Beatrice uses old watch parts to create steampunk sculptures. She mainly uses recycled parts which coincide with her love for nature. More amazing recycleables here. (Image Source: All Natural Arts)

Light and Shadow. Kumi Yamashita manipulates light and shadow to cleverly produce amazing shadow art. She places her solid materials in the direction of light and capture the shadows produced from the interaction. More beautiful shadow art here. (Image Source: Kumi Yamashita)

Sand. Kseniya Simonova uses sand to create animated stories. From a pile of sand, Kseniya can push, rub and pinch sand into accents that translates into beautiful depiction of stories. A quick rub and she can start from a clean slate and start telling stories with sand again. (Image Source: Simonova TV)

Leftover Objects. Wolfgang Stiller uses leftover objects such as bamboo and head molds to create Matchstick Men, large wooden matchsticks that have faces on the burnt ends. (Image Source: Wolfgang Stiller)

Chewing Gum. Here’s one with a slight eek factor: Maurizio Savini uses chewed bubblegum to create sculptures. He likes using chewing gum because of it versatile nature, working on the gum with a knife, while it is still hot. (Image Source: Etgallery.co.il)

Beer Cans. Paul Villinski is a visual artist that uses discarded materials such as beer cans to bring out his artwork in meaningful poetic ways. His concern for environment issues can be seen as he often use recycled materials and give them a new breath of life as art pieces. (Image Source: Paul Villinski)

Resin. This is not a photograph of fish swimming in a barrel. It is a 3D sculpture of fish swimming in a barrel, recreated layer by layer in resin, a product of the genius that is Riusuke Fukahori. Each layer will be poured in, dried, painted on, and the process will be repeated until the full 3D painting is finished. (Image Source: Riusuke Fukahori)

Dirty Car. In Moscow, you may be given a fine if your car is too dirty but for Scott Wade, he purposely makes his car dirty (sometimes using artificial dirt) so he can create wonderful “dirty” art on the back of his car window. Find more dirty car art here. (Image Source: Scott Wade)

Nails. Vlad Artazov bends nails to portray scenes from real life but it is our imagination that helps his photographs come to life. Fancy using two bent nails to depict a young couple in love. (Image Source: Vlad Artazov)

Iron Chains. While most people would not usually look at iron chains as an art material, Seo Young Deok uses iron bike chains to create lifelike human sculptures. (Image Source: Seo Young Deok)

Paper Strips. Yulia Brodskaya uses the quilling process (coiling, shaping and manipulating) of paper strips to create this breathtaking look of an old man and his guitar. (Image Source: Yulia Brodskaya)