Carved Book Landscapes by Guy Laramee. Can’t find any use for those thick books lying around your house?
Carve landscapes out of them! At least, that’s what Guy Laramee has been doing for some time now. An interdisciplinary artist who has been practicing for 30 years now, Laramee has done several things in his lifetime, from stage writing to contemporary music, painting painting and literature. But the work he became most famous for is book sculpture. Rocky mountain ranges, bodies of water, islands and hidden caves, you name it, he can bring it to life out of a book, in 3D. Laramee uses his imagination in his book sculptures. He says his work originates from the idea that ultimate knowledge is more of an erosion than an accumulation. Photos © Guy Laramee via This Is Colossal, Design You Trust Reddit Stumble. Phone Book Carvings of Alex Queral. 51-year-old Alex Queral carves phone-books to create amazing portraits of celebrities such as Clint Eastwood or Kirk Douglas.
‘In carving and painting a head from a phone-book directory, I’m celebrating the individual lost in the anonymous list of thousands of names that describe the size of the community.’ That’s how Alex Queral explains his art, adding that he also enjoys creating an ‘object of longevity’ out of something that otherwise gets discarded every year. The Philadelphia based artist got the idea of using phone-books as an art medium, 14 years ago, while he was looking for some wood to carve.
He spotted a pile of discarded phone-books on the pavement, and the idea just hit him. Since people mostly use the internet, to look for things these days, most phone books just get dumped somewhere, so he sees his art as a way of recycling them. The artist admits it’s pretty difficult to deal with a careless cut that ruins everything, right when he’s about to finish a piece.
Reddit Stumble. The Book Sculptures of Kylie Stillman. Although relatively new, book carving has become on of the most popular art forms of our time, with masterpieces of acclaimed artist like Brian Dettmer or Long Bin-Chen exhibited in galleries around the world.
Kylie Stillman cuts new life into old, outdated books, by sculpting them as slabs of stone and turning them and giving them a second chance as veritable works of art. Using a scalpel, Stillman cuts right into the stack of books, creating beautiful inverted reliefs of trees and the birds that once inhabited them. Her works remind us where the paper for the books came from, by turning the thousands of pages into versions of their original tree form. Reddit Stumble. Celebrity Phone Book Carvings. Alex Queral's "It's All Relative" (Albert Einstein).
Photograph: Projects Gallery When Alex Queral saw a pile of unwanted phone books 14 years ago, he was hit with a flash of inspiration. Rather than just leaving them to rot he would recycle them, using them as the basis for works of art by carving portraits out of them. Alex Queral's "It's All Relative" — side view (Albert Einstein). Photograph: Projects Gallery Ever since, the artist has made up to two carvings a month, with subjects including Barack Obama, Clint Eastwood, the Dalai Lama and the Beatles. Alex Queral's "The Man With No Name" (Clint Eastwood). Explaining how he got started, Queral told The Telegraph: "I'm sure a lot of hard work goes into recycling [phone books] but there are thousands that go unused at all because most people just use the internet to find people these days. " Alex Queral's "The Man With No Name" — side view (Clint Eastwood).
Alex Queral's "Pee-wee" (Pee-wee Herman). Alex Queral's "John 1963" (John Lennon). Book Carvings by Long Bin Chen. You’ve probably seen book carvings before, but Long Bin-Chen’s works are definitely in a league of their own.
Taiwanese artist Long Bin-Chen uses discarded old books to create incredibly detailed sculptures that look like they’re made of marble or wood. Although all his artworks are made out of several books, he carves them all in such a manner that they fit together in a seamless manner. While he could use any books he gets his hands on, Long Bin-Chen only uses those that are relevant to his sculptures.
For example, for one of his Buddha heads, he used New York telephone books. This way, the head will represent a caring Buddha from the East who came to take care of the west. Bought from trash collectors or collected directly from the streets, the books and magazines are first carved with a band or chain saw and then with a dental sander, for finer details. Photo credits Photo credits Photo credits Photo credits Photo credits Photo credits.