Art of War: 20 Awesome Gun and Bullet Artworks

There are artists who work with paint and clay, and then there are artists who create bizarre and thought-provoking art from slightly less conventional materials to prove a point. This collection features sculptures made from guns and bullets, high-speed bullet photography, illustrations of what happens when bullets pierce flesh and even drawings made by shooting at metal and paper with a sub-machine gun.

Reliquaries Made of Guns and Ammunition

(images via: Al Farrow)

Artist Al Farrow combined religious imagery with guns and bullets to startling effect in his 2001 series, ‘Reliquaries’. The sculptures are an ironic play on the medieval cult of the relic as well as a statement about continued ties between war and religion. Farrow says that in the making of these pieces, he was absolutely astonished at the ease with which one can procure huge amounts of gun related paraphernalia.

High-Speed Bullet Photography

(images via: David Neff)

Photographer David Neff keeps his techniques top secret, declining to divulge any details as to how he captures such amazing images. In this series of high-speed bullet photography, he fires .22 bullets at various objects like pears, crayons and cigarettes and takes the photo just as the bullet is grazing or passing through them. The result is a visually stunning reminder of just how destructive bullets can be.

Furniture and Sculpture Made from Discarded Cambodian Weapons

(images via: fresh home)

Sculptor Sasha Constable saw opportunity in the 125,000 weapons that were discarded by the Cambodian government after 30 years of war. Constable, along with a small arms specialist with the European Union, used the guns to create furniture and sculptures in The Peace Art Project Cambodia (PAPC) in November 2003. Among the items created were a coffee table, dining chair, settee, rocking chair and elephant sculpture.

Life Size Wax Figures with Cannon Wounds

(image via: aeroplastics.net)

Two life size male and female wax statues give us an idea of just how damaging a 20mm cannon wound really is in “A Memory of Matter” by Petroc Dragon Sesti. In these works, Sesti sought to explore “the stillness of terminal violence”. The figures were made in collaboration with the British Army, created from hard wax heated to human body temperature to reveal a moment of mutilation frozen in time.

Art Made with Submachine Guns, Rocket Fuel and Pyrotechnics

(image via: Connect Savannah)

Matt Stromberg is not your typical art professor. The Savannah College of Art and Design professor of sculpture uses anything but typical materials and methods in his work. Stromberg began wondering if he could carve with a submachine gun after watching a colleague work with a pneumatic chisel, which makes similar sounds while in use. That led to his current projects, in which he ‘sculpts’ metal panels with rocket fuel, explosives, pyrotechnics, propellants and, yes, bullets.  Stromberg had to go through special training and get licensed to use these materials.

“I think it’s really a fancy way of doing what every artist does,” Stromberg says. “The result is the same as if I grabbed a chunk of charcoal and drew on paper I was going to detonate.”

Bullet Hole as Abstract Montage

(image via: Saatchi Gallery)

If you didn’t know what you were looking at, this piece by Mat Collishaw might look like some kind of abstract painting. Then you realize it’s hair, skin and the gore left behind by a speeding bullet. It’s one large photo made up of 15 frames, mounted on light boxes for extra in-your-face effect.  Of the image, taken from a pathology textbook, Collishaw says, “There’s a religious beauty and animal sexuality in something so abhorrent.” Not all would agree, but it’s a powerful image nonetheless.

“Bullet Proof Vest” Created from Bullets

(images via: Art from the Soul)

Artist Ross Rodriquez made this ‘bulletproof vest’ with 30 caliber rifle shells. The artist, who usually works in printmaking and film, often explores the theme of gun violence in urban America.

Bullet Elephant

(image via: Derek Farr)

Spotted by Derek Farr at the Detroit Zoo, this elephant is a little… different than the ones roaming around outside. It’s a sculpture created by Mary Engel, who says of her creation, ” Elephants have become endangered due to the “gold” of the elephant, its ivory tusks. The bullets which make this sculpture are beautiful but menacing, as they remind us of humans’ destruction of exotic creatures”.

15 Cool Urban Art Projects and Dreamy Product Designs

Chilean artist and designerSebastian Errazuriz never fails to amaze viewers with his offbeat and sometimes bizarre designs and art installations. Hisurban art has been seen all over Santiago, while his innovativeproduct designs have long been a favorite of design blogs. His projects have won numerous awards, and Errazuriz himself has received a Fulbright grant, a Chilean Presidential scholarship, a New York University scholarship and a Deigo Portales University scholarship.

“The Crane” was a large-scale art project erected in Santiago. The twenty-story crane was decorated with 1200 light bulbs as a kind of massive night light, in the tradition of espanta cucos (children’s lamps that frighten away monsters).

“The Tree” was a rather beautiful public art project in the middle of Chile’s National Stadium. A 30-foot high living magnolia tree was planted on the spot where, some 30 years ago, dictator Pinochet tortured political prisoners. A week-long exhibit saw the stadium opened as a public park; at the end of the week, a friendly soccer game was played in front of 15,000 spectators with the tree still in the middle of the field.

Errazuriz’ “The Cow” was a public spectacle that caused many people to leave their places of work just to see it. A cow was saved from the slaughterhouse, then given a home on a recreated farm on top of a ten-story building. The building was within view of the city’s financial and political headquarters.

But Errazuriz’ talents don’t lie only in urban guerrilla art. He is also a designer who has made some of the most fascinating designs in fashion, furniture, household items and zany novelty items. Above are two pieces from his “Out” series: a birdcage made from a shopping trolley and a fishtank made from a water cooler. In everything that Errazuriz does, he challenges people to see everyday objects from a different angle. These two sculptures are excellent examples of how items that we see everyday can take on an entirely new life under the right circumstances.

This dress made entirely of zippers is a fascinating project from Sebastian Errazuriz. The 120 zippers that make up the dress are able to be opened and closed in many configurations, allowing the wearer to customize the dress in seemingly endless styles. It can go from respectable knee-length halter dress to daring two-piece tube-top-and-miniskirt effortlessly. If only all fashion was this adaptable.

Until now, if you wanted to wear a faux fur coat you were stuck with a coat that looked like real fur or was made of ugly plastic fibers. But the teddy bear coat dreamed up by Sebastian Errazuriz would ensure that you are kept warm, stylish and exceptionally cuddly. (Don’t worry, though – the bears in the coat all died of natural causes.)

The household items dreamed up by Errazuriz probably wouldn’t have any place in a home filled with children, but for those of us with a slightly offbeat sense of humor they are perfect. These are just a few of the creative designs that won Errazuriz the honor of being named as a top emerging designer by I.D. Magazine.

These innovative seating options probably mean that the designer’s house is a very interesting place to have afternoon tea. The bicycle seat bench, the stool with suction cup feet, and the chairs with injured legs all seem like seats straight out of an Alice in Wonderland-like world.

Pimped Pump Jacks Give The Nod To Urban Oil Art

Mechanical “nodding donkeys” have been grazing the surface of uninhabited oil fields for many decades but in urban settings they can look, well, crude. Making these horsehead pumps look certifiably “citified” often involves local folk art projects that produce unique and even surprising results. Pimp my pump jack? You know the drill.

Pump Jacks of All Trades

(images via: Wikimedia, River Earth and Stormeffects)

Most pump jacks show a family resemblance no matter where they’re located or who manufactures them. This is due to the “walking beam” mechanism that takes a form-follows-function design ethos. Call them nodding donkeys, horsehead pumps or thirsty birds, pump jacks are designed to do one thing and do it repetitively: extract oil from wells where pressure alone isn’t enough to bring oil to the surface. The pump jack above appears to have sprouted a pair of insectile antennae. You’ll find it on display at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in Socorro, NM.

Season’s Greasings from Lufkin

(image via: Dave Shafer)

Setting up a bright & colorful holiday display? Why not work the local pump jacks into it – makes celebrating the season a much more “moving” experience. Just ask the nice people of Lufkin, Texas. Lufkin’s an oil town… just ask the Mark II 640D pump jack dressed up as Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer in the following video, it’s made by Lufkin Industries. You can find it in the parking lot of the Lufkin Mall in downtown Lufkin.

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer Pumping Unit, via Derekdz

Six Jacks Over Texas

(images via: C. Gillingham)

Drop in to the Texas panhandle town of Borger and you’ll find a classic combination of friendly people and hard-working pump jacks – or is it friendly pump jacks and hard-working people? I’ve had the pleasure of visiting Borger a number of times in the late ’70s and early ’80s, and I recall being awed by the the red, white & blue, All-American pump jack just outside the Borger Chamber of Commerce. Since then it seems there are others scattered about the town; the ones shown above each proudly bear the colors of a nation whose flag once flew above what is now Texas.

The Luling Class

(images via: Wikimedia, Roadside America and Otter & Moose)

Not to be outdone is the town of Luling, Texas. This small town of 5,000 is blessed with nature’s bounty both below ground and above – oil and watermelons, to be exact. To show the world what Luling’s all about, town authorities had a 154 ft high water tower painted up like a watermelon and affixed colorful painted plywood cutouts to many pump jacks nodding away within city limits.

Everything’s Big in Texas…

(image via: Carly Whelan)

Even the bugs! A swarm of locusts, each this large, would certainly be a plague of biblical proportions. Luckily the smiling beastie above is firmly attached to a Luling pump jack AND he’s the only one of his kind. Amen to that.

Old School Nodding Donkey

(images via: ESC and Wikipedia)

Nodding donkeys can be found wherever oil lurks underground. Take the patriotic Petrobras pump jack above, located at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte Campus in Natal, Brazil. It isn’t easy to keep pump jacks looking as nice as the day they were assembled – blistering sun and pouring rain take their toll on paint and metal. This particular pump jack shows signs of TLC, right down to the color-coordinated fence that surrounds it.

Powering the City

(image via: Hubpages)

How many pump jacks are there in South America? At least a Brazilian! This nattily striped pump jack in Salvador, Bahia, nods slowly to and fro while traffic speeds back and forth along the city’s wide avenues – original source and end users, side by side. One wonderswhat would happen should an out-of-control car or truck take out the pump jack… maybe that’s why it looks a lot like a road construction sign.

The Kowtow Pump

(images via: View On Canadian Art and Public Art in Chicago)

How much oil could a pump jack pump if a pump jack could pump oil? None… if it’s one of the decommissioned oil pumping units used by Shen Shaomin for his 2007 “Kowtow Pump” outdoor art exhibit at North Boeing Gallery, Millennium Park in Chicago. According to Shaomin, the camouflage-painted industrial sculpture was meant to be “a commentary of our dependence on oil and it’s impact on environment.”

Watch the Birdies

(images via: Statemasters and TX Roadrunners)

The pump jack above top, painted up to look like a smiling toucan, resembles those glass novelty items partially filled with colored alcohol that bob up and down… but you knew that. Is it any wonder one of the nicknames for pump jacks is “thirsty bird”? Just below it is another pumpjack from Luling, TX, sporting the distinctive plumage of the American Eagle.

A Savage Beauty

(images via: Corbis Images and LIFE)

Sometimes the temptation to soften, even anthropomorphize, our rough-edged mechanical servants is resisted and when that happens the results can be surprisingly pleasing. Though we may live cheek-by-jowl with the tools of our technological success, the jarring concurrence of urban & industry can take on an alm

Mark Reigelman’s Playful & Thought-Provoking Urban Art

As colorful as life in the city can be, things aren’t always rosy – especially in gloomy, grimy neighborhoods where everything seems to be hard, cold and monochromatic. But if artist Mark Reigelman had his way, we’d all go about our days a bit more cheerfully thanks to unexpected urban art installations that perch glass birds on telephone poles, turn fire hydrants into flower vases and transform bus stops into cozy homes.

After all, there’s something joyous about a bunch of flowers, however humble in their paper wrappings – which is why Reigelman chose to model his ‘wrap planters’ after exactly that shape. 18 of these curving concrete planters line the streets in Cleveland, making up one of his rare permanent installations. Reigelman prefers the spontaneity and freedom of temporary installations, but some are more fleeting than others, like the guerrilla redecorated bus shelter that was torn down by city workers the very next day.

“Some people call it being creative, other call it being crazy,”Reigelman told Inside Out. “I have always been creative(crazy) although I did not realize I could be creative(crazy) for a living until my junior year in high school. Once my art teacher told me, ‘Mark, you can do this as a career’, my whole life changed. I think my exact response was, ‘Ms. B, are you f#*@ing serious?!’”

In addition to urban installations, Reigelman creates gallery pieces that are equal parts product design and commentary – albeit tongue-in-cheek. His ‘Shadows’ series of stainless steel wall-mountedbookshelves in the shape that the books’ shadow would create is subtitled “Assigning Function to Shadows.” To “Happiness is a Warm Gun (Pillow)”, Reigelman adds “Bringing Comfort and Safety Into The Home.”

“Wit and humor are absolutely essential. Honestly, there is not a more important element in my work. Anyone can draw a chair and build the goddamn thing. It’s the intimate life and personality in my work that makes it unique. If you ever hear me in my studio laughing maniacally, chances are I am working on something particularly awesome.”

Strange Bookshelves

The most creative modern shelves and unusual bookshelf designs that will allow you to display your book collection in style.

Pulseline Shelf

Inspired by a line that illustrates human heartbeat, this shelf is made from 3mm metal sheet. The edge is painted with fluorescent green. [link]

Distorted Bookshelf

Extremely unusual plywood bookshelf design by dbd Studio. [link]

Flybrary Bookshelf

Books hang on metal strips, creating the levitation effect. [link]

Infinity Shelf System

Cool never ending shelf system designed by Samuel Accoceberry. [link]

FlexiTube Shelving

Modular shelving by Doris Kisskalt. Inside each tube is a shelf for storage which serves as a visual horizontal line. [link]

LIEUL Bookshelf

Contemporary bookshelf by the industrial designer Ahn DaeKyung. [link]

Branch Shelf

Hand painted tree branch inspired shelf made from solid wood. [link]

Wind Shelf

“Shelf in the Wind” designed by Olivia Bradateanu. [link]

Storyline Bookshelf

Sound finds a physical identity in this beautifully crafted bookshelf. [link]

Coffee Table Bookshelf

Unique coffee table comes with cool compartments for your books. [link]

Comic Bookshelf

Creative bookshelf inspired by speech bubbles from comic books. [link]

Tree Bookshelf

Beautiful tree inspired bookshelf by Korea designer Shawn Soh. [link]

United States Bookshelf

Bookshelf by Ron Arad shaped like the United States of America. [link]

Unique Chair Designs

Collection of unusual chairs and weird chair designs that will make a great addition to any modern home.

Fiberglass Chair

Limited edition fiberglass chair by Vladimir Kagan and Ralph Pucci. [link]

aCHAIR

Modern chair by Ivo Otasevic is designed to look like the letter ‘a’. [link]

Ivy Chair

Stylish chair by h220430 design studio is covered in white leaves. [link]

Air Chair

Inspired by the concepts of lightness, weightlessness and comfort. [link]

Bamboo Chair

Elegant chair is composed of rounded box-shaped bamboo frames. [link]

Zip-Up Chair

Unique chair designed by Kim In-bo can be transformed into a stool. [link]

Gaudi Chair

The surface is made from carbon fiber and the ribs are made of glass-filled nylon, fused together by selective laser sintering. [link]

Secret Club House Chair

Unusual chair by talented Danish design student Martin Vallin. [link]

Ferrari Chair

GTB chair is perfect for the die hard fans of Ferrari sports cars. [link]

Snake Chair

Stylish chair designed by Roberto Lazzeroni. [link]

Cloth Chair

Comfortable chair manufactured from extremely soft fabric. [link]

Infinity Chairs

Cool chairs made from steel sections seamlessly linked together. [link]

Rope Chair

Unique chair design created by Tom Price from melted blue rope. [link]

NEMO Chair

Beautiful chair designed by the Italian architect Fabio Novembre. [link]

Unusual and Creative Staircase Designs

The Amazing Staircase

Levitate Architects came up with this ingenious solution to a book storage problem and created a loft-like bedroom nestled under the roof of the top-floor apartment. [link]

Skateboard Stairs

Creative stairs made from skateboard decks. [link]

Hanging Box Stairs

Creative inside-out hanging box stairs. [link]

Disappearing Stairs                                                                                                     With a press of a button–and some hydraulic pistons–this staircase folds up and disappears into the wall. [link]

Stairway Drawers

What a great way to utilize a generally overlooked space! Step and store in style, using each step as storage for a different item. [link]

Freaky Human Head Candle by Maxim Velčovský

Tell me which is more freaky: the baby-head porcelain candle holder (check out the faint cheek blushes even!), or the fact that when you plop a fat candle on it and burn it, the wax drip runs down the head and becomes the … “hair”?

Little Joseph is a hand-painted, porcelain candle holder. We can’t decide if he’s sinister or sweet. Part of that will certainly depend on what you decide to do with his hair. Use dripless candles if you’d like to keep him bald, otherwise, give him pure white locks, beeswax locks, or hair in several shades of the rainbow.

Nonetheless, damn cool!