Awesome Art

Multimedia artist René Patrick Martinez created the work Unraveling Mercedes, a fascinating piece of art that incorporates multiple images of a person from inception through the end of their life. Each stage of their life is revealed through a series of paintings which are peeled off one layer at a time.

Chicago artist Nicholas Berchtold created this incredible piece of furniture for renowned tattoo artist Pony Lawson. Under its glass tabletop is an intricate model of the Windy City, precision machined from wood, laser-cut acrylic, and 3D-printed ABS, finished in a marble pattern. More info available on the artist’s website.

Nixon jams with the Grateful Dead for this watch collection featuring the band’s iconic artwork. Dancing bears, lightning bolts, skeleton hands and roses rock on Nixon’s classic Time Teller watch in three dial designs. 10 ATM / 100m water resistance means you don’t need to worry if the concert gets rained on.

To showcase the beauty of Brazil at World Expo Dubai, design studio Cactus created an awe-inspiring multisensory experience inside an enormous “digital canvas.” Images and sounds of Brazil’s myriad landscapes surround viewers via 140+ projectors that seamlessly map over two billion pixels per second. Ends 3.31.22.

This online time-waster is an endless canvas where anyone can post messages and create art entirely from ASCII characters. It provides an ever-changing environment that will have you coming back to see how it evolves. Be aware, since it’s unmoderated, you can expect some offensive text and images to sneak in.

This artful deck of cards features colorful stained glass imagery inspired by a powerful mythological entity. Printed by the US Playing Card Company with an Air-Cushion finish and packed in a matching box with a custom stained glass seal.

Architect Farhad Mirzaie and A.P.P Architects & Associates created a unique facade for a building that incorporates thousands of bricks that can rotate. Located in Arak, Iran, the Revolving Bricks Serai allows light into the office building while also preserving privacy and helping to reduce glare and heat.

Artist Thalasso hobbyer makes amazing dioramas, often with undersea creatures as their subject. This gnarly sea monster was inspired by a fellow artist’s illustration of a nightmarish vision. They sculpted the beast from wire and clay, surrounded it with tiny sharks, fish, and a diver, then submerged them in ocean blue resin.

Mechanical engineer Kiyoshi Adachi created this wonderful work of kinetic wall art which features a tiny metal man who turns a crank, setting into motion a ballet of spinning gears and dancing rods. Those elliptical gears are especially cool.

You could cover your walls with paint or wallpaper, or you could do something a bit more special like woodworker Paul Jackman did. He used an X-CARVE Pro CNC machine to make 800 plywood hexagons, cut them to varying heights, colored them with Minwax stains, then glued them to his wall in an abstract pattern.

Printing and silkscreening produce full-color images by separating colors into cyan, magenta, yellow, and black, then printing them a layer in a dot pattern. This artist does the same, only using markers on transparencies. They didn’t bother with black because CMY is enough to create most colors, just without much contrast.

Gorillaz co-creator Jamie Hewlett presents a 288-page coffee table book filled with new interpretations of 2D, Murdoc, Niccals, Noodle, and Russel Hobbs, by 40 fellow artists and friends like Craig McCracken, Jack Black, and Robert Smith. Printed and bound with luxury art paper in Verona, Italy. Pre-orders ship starting 4.2022.

Select any map you want, and Foster Leathercraft will make you a custom work of wall art by carving and embossing real leather. Each map is mounted to a sturdy fiberboard backing, and can be framed for just a few dollars more. They offer small, medium, and large sizes.

Vietnam-based artists The Wooden Model Design build incredibly detailed laser-cut wood models, including replicas of professional camera equipment. Among their creations are a Sony Alpha 1, a Hasselblad 500CM, and a RED Komodo 6K, and a Mamiya RZ67.

Illustrating just how interdependent the world has become, artist Neil Mendoza built The Fragility of Complexity, a motorized, kinetic art installation composed of a row of hammers that rotate perilously close to a series of moving light bulbs. Neil says only a single light bulb was broken during its construction.

Insight Editions offers a glimpse inside the mind of filmmaker and adventurer James Cameron. The 392-page coffee table book is packed with exclusive images from Cameron’s personal archives, revealing concepts that led to classics like The Terminator, Aliens, Titanic, and Avatar, plus other films that were never produced.

Artist Steven Richter is known for creating impressively realistic busts. In this video from 2020, he makes a 1:2-scale sculpture of himself which he posed making an even tinier 1:4-scale version of himself. We need to go deeper!

South Carolina’s Moore Than Just a Book makes works of illuminated using layers of laser-cut paper under glass to create a silhouetted depth effect. Our favorite is this scene inspired by the world of Super Mario. It measures 8″h x 10″w and comes with either a black or white frame.

After working with some black palm wood and seeing its unusual end-grain pattern, artist Andy Phillip wanted to make a piece of art from it. So he cut some slices of the wood, attached them to a plastic form, covered them in resin, then turned the whole thing on his lathe. The finished piece looks like it could make a cool bowling ball.

These unique maps are printed onto an aluminum panel, combining vintage cartography with a modern aesthetic. Designs are available for a variety of U.S. cities as well as a world map, in sizes starting at 12″ x 16″ up to 24″ x 36″. Sale prices through 11.2.2021 from Touch of Modern.

Artist Michael Pederson has been placing miniature signs and dioramas around parks and other public places in Sydney, Australia. The signs help guide ants, birds, and other small creatures through their tiny worlds. The airport for pigeons is our favorite.

Working from home doesn’t mean your home needs to look like an office. The Secret Whiteboard conceals a whiteboard behind a picture frame, so it looks like any other piece of art on your wall when not in use. Strong magnets keep it closed securely, and it’s deep enough to hold pens inside. Available in three sizes.

Artist and engineer Robert Spillner created this unique plaything – a disc filled with a sparkly fluid that looks like an atmosphere swirling around a planet. As you shake and move the disc, the metallic liquid creates an endless variety of organic patterns. Its particles can also be influenced by a magnet placed outside of its chamber.

Realm Crafts spent a full year working on this incredible cross-stitch, packed with all 151 first-generation Pokémon characters. While we would have loved it if the time-lapse had more in-between frames to show us, the artistry of the work more than makes up for it.

Diamond painting kits offer a fresh take on paint-by-numbers. They let you recreate works of art by placing tiny rhinestones to create shiny, pixelated versions of pieces like Van Gogh’s Starry Night. In addition to the sets we found on Amazon, the guys at Pretty Neat Creative can make custom kits based on your own images.

Gav of The Slow Mo Guys poured paint onto a wooden disc, then spun it with a drill at speeds up to 1500 RPM. While there’s nothing particularly notable about spin art, what makes this video interesting is the rotation synchronized high-speed footage that shows how the colorful patterns emerge in a split second.