3 Incredible Artists using Intriguing Techniques
Artists typically use various mediums to create art and sculptures, from paint and canvas to plaster, stone and acquired metals. But far from just child’s play, some have paved their way to fame with unlikely methods using materials of balloons, Lego bricks, and even old telephones to raise ordinary kid’s toys to the status of incredible art.
Photo C-monster
Balloon Sculptures by Jason Hackenwerth
Using hundreds of brightly colored balloons that he twists together with fantastic mathematical symmetry to create surreal sculptures and strange creatures that look like something from out of a sci-fi movie, Jason Hackenwerth was inspired by his mother who used to dress up as a clown and make balloon animals at a local train station.
Photo Paxsimius
Photo SCAD
Revenge of the Megadon – Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History. Photo Siteprojects
The artist first began creating balloon sculptures after moving to New York, taping them in the subway and photographing them. Since then he has expanded his balloon art for a wide array of functions — from gallery shows to raising money for Habitat for Humanity — composing monstrous sized structures as large as small houses, some up to 40 feet (12 meters) long which take more than a week to create.
Photo Siteprojects
Photo Siteprojects
Photo Siteprojects
Living and working in New York City, Hackenwerth has built and performed for the Megamite in the Deitch Art Star Parade in Manhattan, and special events in Las Vegas, Miami, Basel, Venice and Paris. The Megamite made its presence on the streets of New Haven in June 2006 as part of the International Festival of Arts & Ideas.
In 2006 he had solo shows at Jang Heung Art Park in Seoul, Korea, Raid Projects in Los Angeles, Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago and was the featured artist at the New Museum Gala.
His sculptures were also featured in the Great Hall of Dinosaurs at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History in June 2006.
Photo SCAD
The Megamite – New Haven. Photo Siteprojects
Photo SCAD
Jason Hackenwerth received his MFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design and BFA from Webster University in St. Louis, Missouri.
Photo SCAD
Photo SCAD
Photo SCAD
Timeout
Photo Artnet
Jason Hackenwerth at NavtaSchulz Gallery. Photo Paul Germanos
Photo Raid Projects
Photo Raid Projects
Photo Ninahale
Photo MP Mayer
Jason Hackenwerth in Paris and Venice Wearing …
Visit Jason Hackenwerth’s website to learn more.
LEGO Art by Nathan Sawaya
Using a medium that’s become an art form all its own, Nathan Sawaya creates awe-inspiring works featuring some of the most unlikely small and large-scale sculptures using LEGO building blocks.
With more than 1.5 million colored LEGO bricks in his New York studio, Nathan Sawaya’s sculptures take many forms, from replicas of the Statue of Liberty and Brooklyn Bridge to life-sized works of a tyrannosaurus rex skeleton.
Each amazing creation is obsessively and painstakingly crafted to transform small bits of plastic bricks into striking, humorous, and playful sculptures.
His art is currently touring North American museums in a show titled, “The Art of the Brick” — the only exhibition focusing exclusively on LEGO as an art medium. The creations, constructed from nearly one million pieces, were built from standard bricks beginning as early as 2002.
Nathan Sawaya continues to build daily while accepting commission work from individuals and corporations alike.
Mask is currently on display at the Avant Gallery in Miami
It’s not easy being green
The Womb
Sing
Brooklyn Bridge and Statue of Liberty
Long Island University requested Nathan to build the Brooklyn Bridge out of plastic. Built in 1875, the original spans the East River between Manhattan and Brooklyn, and the artist’s rendition spans just under 7 feet (2 meters) in length.
The Statue of Liberty was built by request of donation by NYLine for an auction benefitting the Starlight Starbright Children’s Foundation as part of their activities surrounding the release of the last Star Wars film. Nathan attempted to capture the essence of the New York based organization as well as their love for everything Star Wars that led to Lady Liberty wielding a lightsaber.
The Starlight Starbright Children’s Foundation was founded by Steven Spielberg and Peter Samuelson whose mission is to brighten the daily lives of seriously ill children and their families. Through an array of in-hospital, outpatient, school and home-based programs and services, Starlight Starbright touches the lives of more than 180,000 children and families each month.
When Capcom launched its new “Lost Planet” game for the Xbox 360, Nathan was asked to build an enormous robot for their launch event in San Francisco.
Han Solo in Carbonite
Wanting to do something never been done before for a Star Wars model, Nathan created a life-sized Han Solo frozen in carbonite which required about 10,000 bricks and 3 months of on and off building.
As part of the groundbreaking ceremonies, the artist was asked to create a reproduction of the North American Headquarters in Illinois for Takeda Pharmaceuticals based on a rendering prepared by the architect.
He created the building from LEGO elements over the course of the event while sitting on a large map displaying the area in which the new building would be constructed.
A friend of Nathan’s wanted a replica of one of her friends, positioned to sit on a shelf. The artist created the sculpture to look as though he was waiting for something, or the right moment to jump off of the shelf and pounce.
With the weight of the world upon his shoulders, Nathan says he often gets lost, so he created a globe to orient himself with locations, covering all of the areas he might find himself in one day.
Balance
The ‘Bipolar Bear’ was created for a collector of polar bears who requested that its head be able to move up and down.
Using Joe Rosenthal’s famous photograph as inspiration, Nathan was commissioned to build a replica of the flag raising at Iwo Jima for permanent installation at the National Museum of the Marine Corps. Five Marines and a Navy corpsman were created, raising the flag atop Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima which took over 100,000 LEGO bricks
Commissioned to create a large sculpture for permanent installation at the New Orleans Public Library for the LEGO builders of Tomorrow campaign, the sculpture celebrates the rebirth of New Orleans, taking 6 weeks to build using more than 120,000 LEGO elements.
“Ways that I am like a cat: We both hate leashes. (Not exactly true for me.)” says Nathan.
The artist built an antique slot machine for a collector from, where else, Las Vegas.
Working with the Make-A-Wish Foundation and Major League Baseball, Nathan created this White Sox player that rarely swings at a bad pitch, for a special boy with a wish — to be number 11 on the White Sox, replicated out of LEGO.
T-Rex was a project for Legoland California for which Nathan worked with world-renowned designer William Webb, consuming hundreds of hours and thousands of bricks in the undertaking.
After appearing on The Colbert Report show, Nathan comments, “Where else can you laugh a lot while being insulted at the same time? (Other than my dating experiences.)” He created the Stephen sculpture in his “friend-pose” so that Stephen’s friends could be easily Photoshopped next to him.
A Starry Night Nathan Sawaya style
Nathan wanted to bring his own interpretation to the mix after having seen Van Gogh’s Starry Night reproduced from Lego before by “using innocuous colors to capture the essence of the painting,” adding that he has no idea what ‘innocuous’ means.
Nathan Sawaya with Stephen Colbert
The Art of the Brick will be on view in the Stamford Museum & Nature Center’s Bendel Mansion Museum Galleries up to August 17, 2008, located at 39 Scofieldtown Road, Stamford, Connecticut.
More information on the tour, dates and locations can be found on the Stamford Museum website.
Visit Nathan Sawaya’s website to learn more about the artist.
Telephone Sheep by Jean Luc Cornec
Sheep will never be the same after being all tied up in creations by Jean-Luc Cornec, designed from recycled telephones and curly phone cables.
Photo MisterBisson
The installation of flocks of these creatures was on display at the Federal Postal Museum and Museum for Communications in Frankfurt Main, Germany.
The origin of the museum lies in the removal of the Berlin Reich Postal Museum during the Second World War: 1945 became part of stocks by American soldiers from Berlin to Hesse, where the core of the 1958 Federal Postal Museum formed.
Housed in a villa founders included the Federal Postal Museum of the first museums on the Frankfurt Schaumainkai — the later Museumsufer was built in 1990.
Photo MisterBisson
Photo Potatoknish
Photo Kyla and Alex
Photo Hanneorla
Photo Loop Oh
Photo Dannyman
Photo EvaK
Photo Carovald
Photo Zakkaliciousness
Photo Spinningwolf65
Sources: Timeout, SCAD, Siteprojects, Artnet, and Raid Projects
These are awesome. I particularly like the flocks.
The telephone sheep were actually the inspiration for this entire post, Mig
They’re pretty cool, but I also love a lot of Nathan Sawaya’s works.
Wow—love all this gorgeous creativity! It’s so inpsiring! I think that comment about the leash by the lego artist is hilarious!
Yet another superlative post from The Master! Bravo!
Thanks Kuahyin
Hehe, I thought it was hilarious myself 
Great!
i hope that the exposed figures (sculpture = removing the material from Stone or Wood)
are creations from the mind of the respective artist and without the use of computer.
Love the lego, I’ve seen the guy that does that on a UK TV breakfast show – very nice bloke.
I’m not sure which photos you’re referring to Jo. I can say this much, the balloon art photos were from respectable art sites, as well as several users from Flickr. The images for Nathan Sawaya were directly from his website, and the telephone sheep were from several Flickr profiles, as well as Wikipedia. I think it’s pretty safe to say that none have been created as art from a photo editing program.
I think he’s an excellent artist, Dan, and he seemed to have a lot of great character based on what I read from his website
Wow, love this entire stunning creativeness! It’s so inspiring! I think that comment with reference to the restraint by the Lego artist is hilarious!
Again, I love the creativity. And the whimsical nature of all three artists is refreshing. I’d actually love to have one of those sheep!
I just met Nathan Sawaya here in Hawaii! He had a huge display of his artwork in the local mall to help celebrate the 50th anniversary of LEGO.
I can’t get over the balloon creatures. I never thought I would ever see a balloon animal that would give me nightmares. Very creepy. Please keep that guy away from the children.
It must have been quite an impressive exhibit, considering it was for the 50th anniversary, Arasys. And actually from what I have read about the balloon artist, they’re quite a hit with kids. More fun than anything.
What amazing blog site this is. Very unique and artistic. It inspires others to create out everything. If you have the inspiration then you can express it in all kinds of different means. Once I saw a wonderful necklace in Cannes made out of safety pins. It was so beautiful I hardly noticed these were safety pins. I think utilizing objects that you would not normally use for a piece of art is great.
Thank you Xanya
You would be surprised what some have created in the name of art from found and disposed of articles that can actually be highly impressive 
Jason Hackenwerth’s work is wild. It reminded me of some of Dale Chihuly’s glass sculptures and I wonder is Jason would ever think of collaborating with him to make some wonderful sculptures in glass.
Patricia
Yup – very cool stuff – I agree, similar to Chihuly’s stuff. His work is really amazing…
- Rob
chicago wedding and family photographer
Thanks for the tip Patricia, I hadn’t heard of him up to now, but will definitely do an article on him in the very near future.
I agree Rob, Dale Chihuly’s work is incredible.
These are some great pictures and pieces of art. Thanks for mentioning them on your website
Wow! What a masterpiece.I never thought that one can use materials of balloons, Lego bricks, and even old telephones to make an incredible art.How about making a model of a jewelry out of this materials?
It’s incredibly beautiful!
Some fantastic concepts here. The balloon flowers are something quite dramatically erotic from such a simple building block. But for I just adore the telephone-headed sheep! Simply brilliant and you can imagine the baaaa ringtone! Love it.
Thanx.
Good pics.
Thank you so much for sharing about these artists- they are very inspiring. It’s amazing that limiting oneself to one material can force the artist to be even more creative. I’d seen the works of the last two artists before, but the balloon artist was new to me. Talk about stunning work!!! Thanks again for posting!
.-= Elizabeth Symington´s last blog ..Inspiration for my current commission =-.