found object art

In an age of Netflix, Spotify and iTunes, we continue to leave behind a large trail of redundant CDs and DVDs. Turning those discs made from layers of aluminium and polycarbonate plastic into something useful, let alone beautiful is no easy feat. In the UK, only a handful of... Read More →

When it comes to reusing unwanted materials in an innovative way, it seems the humble seat can be made from just about anything. Looking at the designs below, seating can also surprise and delight as a striking art piece. If you’re sitting comfortably, read on to see some... Read More →

Embroidery seems to be having a moment. Not only is there a plethora of contemporary cross stitch kits appearing on Etsy (depicting anything from ‘more gin please’ to llamas), there’s now a new wave of crafters learning to embroider their own jeans and jackets.... Read More →

I first came across the work of Elisa Cavani, whilst doing research for my book Upcyclist. Hailing from Bologna, Italy, Elisa makes whimsical lighting, desks and furniture pieces made from found objects, all of which can only be described as the epitome of one-of-a-kindness. Now... Read More →

Los Angeles artist Augustine Kofie created a body of work with an incredible futuristic quality, despite being made from forgotten materials of the past. Kofie finished his art education at high school but became a key player in the L.A. graffiti scene of the 1990... Read More →

Ilaria Bianchi is a furniture and product designer from Pisa, Italy. She studied Industrial Design in Turin, and after winning a scholarship moved to Stockholm where she did work experience in the studio of Fredrik Paulsen. Relishing Paulsen’s vibrant, crafty approach, she... Read More →

Imagine the patience required to create such intricate carvings as this? Recollecting the tedium of sharpening pencils in art classes, only for the lead to inevitably break off would be enough to put me off. Yet for Bosnian artist Jasenko Đorđević, carving his sculptures made... Read More →

Founder of Swarm, Leslie Oschmann reclaims objects found in Dutch markets, French homes or Belgian antique shops to create something unexpected and beautiful. Visual Director for US Anthropologie for 8 years, she was inspired by the beauty and possibilities in reclaimed objects... Read More →

Mike Stilkey creates captivating paintings on discarded books using acrylics, inks, coloured pencil and lacquer. Almost Tim Burton-esque, the distinctive style of the Los Angeles artist features depictions of melancholic characters ‘inhabiting ambiguous spaces and... Read More →

Kyle Bean is an award-winning London based illustrator, director and set designer. From sculptures made from eggshells to tube maps made from drinking straws, he creates playful, concept-driven imagery for editorial and commercial projects, as well as installations for fashion... Read More →

From her Promenade (2010) featuring 105 miles of gold thread to her musical manuscript installation Resonance (2013), we continue to be amazed by Susie MacMurray‘s creations. For Cloud (2015) at The Great Hall, Winchester, MacMurray’s latest installation is made from... Read More →

California mixed media artist Scott McMillin chops up reclaimed car parts to create geometric works of art. Scrap metal from cars is cut into squares and rectangles and assembled like a jigsaw puzzle to create textural wall sculptures, some of which closely resemble paintings by... Read More →

These incredible animal sculptures by Marc Sparfel have a primitive aesthetic achieved through the reuse and reconfiguration of found furniture. Sparfel grew up in Brittany, north-west France surrounded by countryside and animals. After graduating from school, he studied commerce... Read More →

Fashion meets art quite literally for Viktor & Rolf‘s AW15 couture showcase. The Wearable Art collection was unveiled at Paris Haute Couture Fashion Week at Palais de Toyko earlier this year and featured garments made from broken picture frames filled with fabric. The... Read More →

Wyatt Gallery (a person not a place) is an award-winning American photographer living between New York and the Caribbean. Many of his photos raise awareness and support for communities damaged by natural disaster such as Haiti and Hurricane Sandy. This year he exhibited a body of... Read More →

A Portuguese street artist Bordalo Segundo creates assemblage art from trash found on the streets of Lisbon. Using old tyres, scrap metal, steering wheels and other car parts, he adds oil paint into the mix to create giant 3D animal portraits that add a striking splash of colour... Read More →

Now here’s a project that may raise a few eyebrows. Jewellery made from dismembered dolls can be too macabre for some, but The Plastic Bodies series is a thought provoking collection that will induce both repulsion and intrigue. Upcycled Barbie dolls is a new one on us, and... Read More →

Every year, American modern furniture store Design Within Reach launches the DWR Champagne Chair Contest™. This is a competition to design a miniature chair using only the foil, label, cage and cork of no more than two champagne bottles. This year’s winners were... Read More →

Unwanted junk is the medium of choice for British designer Karen Ryan, who graduated from the RCA in 2001. She first encountered raw materials such as broken televisions and abandoned furniture in a long alleyway behind her grandmother’s flat. Seeing furniture from her... Read More →

We return to the work of Matthew Cusick, an American artist who has created a visual vocabulary using cut out maps from atlases and books. Previously we featured some of his portraits and cityscapes, also made from upcycled maps. Another subject favoured by Cusick is the... Read More →

A while back we featured Nick Gentry‘s ethereal portraits painted on to floppy disks and film negatives. Nick Gentry is inspired by the evolution of consumerism, technology, identity and cyber culture. The British artist continues to create fascinating works of art made... Read More →

These intriguing functional works of art are made from litter collected by the National Recycling Group in São Paulo, Brazil. Brunno Jahara is the talent behind the vividly coloured lamps and vessels which he produced in 2012. His aim was to draw attention to the amount of... Read More →

Taking the pencil as symbolic of creativity, art and craft, Amalgamated is a project by Finnish artist Tuomas Markunpoika which examines the pencil as a mass produced tool that serves an individual purpose. These vases are created by gluing one facet of a pencil to another,... Read More →

Set in the Street, a collaboration between Justin Bettman and stylist Gozde Eker, is a Wes Anderson inspired photography project involving the salvaging of furniture and household items found on the streets of New York. Last December, elaborate sets were built and photographed,... Read More →

Brazilian designers Fernando and Humberto Campana are renowned for  their reuse and re-appropriation to make furniture and interiors. Since launching in 1983 they have built an international reputation with works founded on the principles of reinvention an... Read More →

Dan Rawlings creates intricate artwork from pieces of scrap metal. His imagery is inspired by the fresh mindset of childhood, the fractal beauty of nature and our interaction with it. Typical scenes depicted include figures building a treehouse or walking amongst nature. Rawlings... Read More →

Gary Dickins is a self-taught artist based in Taunton, Somerset. Dickins uses a vast range of found materials in his work including handmade paper, canvas, earth, fungi, cheese cloth, stitching, paint, textiles and rusting metal. The work invites the viewer to reflect on our role... Read More →

Jeremy Mayer is a California based artist with no formal art training. Mayer disassembles typewriters and puts them back together to create anatomically correct human figures and animals without any glueing or welding. After disassembly he puts all the parts in to categories and... Read More →

New York photographer Bing Wright makes stunning photographs of sunsets and landscapes that are reflected in shattered mirrors. The real life photographs are huge measuring 4’x6′, giving the appearance of giant spider webs or stained glass windows – magical! Via... Read More →

Alexander Korzer-Robinson is a UK based artist who creates beautiful book sculptures using cut out images from old encyclopaedias and books. His work contains narratives that try to explore and deconstruct nostalgia, creating what he describes as our ‘inner... Read More →

Based in Amsterdam, Bruce Wayland and Marcello De Simone are the designers behind Little Owl Design. Their Altered Perspectives collection combines painting with transferware plates to create merged scenes. Canvas is applied to the surface of the plates creating a contrast... Read More →

Creations by American interdisciplinary artist Agustina Woodgate involve clever use of disregarded materials.  Skin Rugs is a collection of rugs made from disassembled stuffed animal toys. A play on the animal skin rug, she took the skins from unloved toys and stitched them... Read More →

Ephemeral Rays is an installation of burnt out lightbulbs by artist Charlotte Smith, for a Fine Art degree show at the University of Kent last year. The lightbulbs are designed to give the viewer a sense of the volume of space and light within the galvanising shop in Chatham... Read More →

Japanese artist Yuken Teruya carves miniature trees from discarded shopping bags.  The trees are part of a series called Notice – Forest.   Tacked to the wall, the inside of the Cartier, Tiffany & Co and McDonalds bags become shadow boxes, revealing intricate diorama... Read More →

This summer, Susie MacMurray exhibited a new work at Fabrica gallery in Brighton, UK.  ‘Resonance’ is made up of thousands of musical manuscripts ranging from traditional hymns to modern jazz which are suspended from the ceiling of the gallery which used to be a... Read More →

Brian Smallwood is a Nottingham artist who reclaims car windscreens and turns them into works of art.  Over a million windscreens are scrapped each year.  Smallwood purchases them from eBay and scrap dealers before cleaning them up and painting on to them with acrylics – an... Read More →

Jasmine Matus is a contemporary jeweller and maker from Sydney.  Experimenting with concepts, materials and scale, her pieces often juxtapose unconventional materials, pairing precious metals with plastics, paint, wood, felt and found objects.  She says “Jewellery is... Read More →

According to artist Scott Weaver, an estimated 3,000 painstaking hours have gone into creating this unbelievable sculpture made entirely from toothpicks.  The detail (not to mention the fragility) is almost impossible to fathom.  But it gets better – the work entitled... Read More →

It was whilst working for Gilbert and George as students in the late 1990s that Brit artists Tim Noble and Sue Webster  began experimenting with the assemblage of household rubbish.  Born out of this was their first shadow sculpture ‘Miss Understood & Mr Meanor’ which is... Read More →

According to the children’s song, the response to ‘there’s a hole in my bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza, dear Liza’ is ‘with a straw, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry’ – a make do and mend principle taken literally by German designer... Read More →

These whimsical lights by French designer Louis-Marie Planquette are made from objects found in flea markets and antique shops, “…created from recycled objects‚ in an atmosphere of simplicity‚ humour‚ poetry and balance.”  His works are inspired by... Read More →

I recently saw this piece ‘Miaudulation de fritance ‘(1962) by Arman in the Centre Pompidou.  The French born American artist began working as an abstract painter before using the brushes he painted with in the painting itself.  Thereafter, many of his works combined... Read More →

Chicago artist Pei-San Ng likes to make things in modules.  Her work often involves using hundreds of identical everyday objects as pixels to create an image, word, symbol or icon.  The matches used in these works are designed to tease the viewer.  She says, “When you look at... Read More →

Still en vacance à Paris (now covered in a blanket of snow) I came across the intriguing work of Richard Stankiewicz in the Centre Pompidou.   The artist is an American sculptor who began creating work in the 1940s whilst in the US navy.  His assemblage sculpture is made of... Read More →

You wouldn’t imagine a humble set of Crayolas would easily cross over into the realm conceptual art.  Pete Goldlust subverts the crayon’s association with child’s play to explore themes to do with human nature, action and psychology.  Each crayon is a hand... Read More →

These charming creatures are all made from broken electronics and machine parts, mobile phones and salvaged scraps, cleverly put together by Rhode Island artist Ann P. Smith whose work has been exhibited across the United States.  Her portfolio includes goats, birds, jellyfish,... Read More →

Zac Freeman‘s portraits are made of assembled found objects, disposable goods and leftover junk.  Each work offers the viewer a realistic portrait from a distance which on closer inspection emerges into a fascinating collection of objects.  The ephemera chosen is key to... Read More →

Japanese artist Tadashi Kawamata creates giant amorphous structures from found materials that he installs in public locations.  Structures made from wooden crates and boxes appear to engulf the buildings or flow out of them, transforming materials that are easily overlooked into... Read More →

Armando Lerma and Carlos Ramirez are artists from Southern California, aka ‘The Date Farmers’.  They scavenge for found materials in Mexicali and Oaxaca in order to create collaged artwork embellished with drawings and paintings.  As Americans with Mexican descent,... Read More →

You wouldn’t let the Andrex puppy into this art gallery. Trans-layers I and Trans-layers II are beautiful art installations made from the humble toilet roll by Hamburg based Turkish artist  Sakir Gökcebag, with surprisingly majestic results. Gökcebag frequently uses... Read More →

The Super Design Gallery at last month’s Super Brands London  featured a selection of items that demonstrated some supreme international design talent. Dominocabinet Number 5 (above) is by Dutch designers Atelier Schelling & Borsboom, a limited edition of six which took... Read More →

Roseanne Bartley is an Australian jewellery artist who uses found materials collected from the streets, laneways and parklands of Melbourne to make her pieces.  She carries a small pack of tools on her travels and pauses along her journey to drill and thread the fragments with... Read More →

Nick Gentry‘s latest work follows on from his redundant media series of portraits on floppy disks.  Profile Number 7 (pictured above) comprises vintage film negatives, x-rays and oil on acrylic sheets.  The haunting photographic imagery can only be seen on close inspection... Read More →

It’s possible you will either love or hate the work of Jason Mecier. Celebrity faces made of beans, noodles and cereal (including a portrait of Condoleezza Rice made from rice) certainly won’t be to everyone’s taste. However, the likeness he is able to create... Read More →

Clementine James of Little Glass Clementine is a self-taught artist. Each wonderful piece of jewellery is a narrative of collected treasure, discarded objects and precious gems. Comprising anything from a pebble found on the Scottish shores to a button from her... Read More →