Eye Popping Pill Portraits of Celebrities Amy Winehouse, Heath Ledger & More.

Get a load of Jason Mecier's portraits of celebrities Amy Winehouse, Michael Jackson, Heath Ledger, Courtney Love and Kelly Osbourne made with actual pills. While it's true that some of these subject's undoing was the medium itself, others, like Kelly Osbourne have successfully kicked the habit. Either way, these are interesting homages to them.






Be sure to check out the Red Vine, Candy and Junk mosaic portraits by this same artist, Jason Mecier and the self portrait comprised of Ecstacy tablets by bar code artist Scott Blake.

Mary Ellen Croteau Creates a Self Portrait with Thousands of Plastic Bottle Caps.

above: detail from CLOSE, a self-portrait of Mary Ellen Croteau made with plastic bottle caps

There seem to be an endless number of talented artists creating portraits using assemblages of unexpected items; licorice, junk, toys, pills, pencils, diamonds, pushpins and more. I have already featured nine different artists who create portraits from such items unusual work on this blog and now I'm introducing you to a tenth, Mary Ellen Croteau.

(click on each image below to see posts on each of these nine artists):



above: Top row. l to r: Bernard Pras' portrait of Bruce Lee, Zac Freeman's portrait of Garrett, Scott Blake's self portrait. Middle row, l to r: Jason Mercer's portrait of Kim Kardashian made with licorice vines, Christian Faur's portrait made of crayons, a diamond and sapphire gemstone portrait of Marilyn Monroe. Bottom row, l to r: Federico Uribe's portrait of a tiger made with pencils, Charles Manson made of rubik's cubes, and Eric Daigh's pushpin portrait.

Mary Ellen Croteau had been working with plastic bottle caps to create columnar sculptures, but while crafting these, she became compelled to create a large self-portrait with them.



She describes this inspiration below:
"Plastic bottle caps - like bags, a plastic product that can’t be/ isn’t recycled. I conceived of an “endless column” of these caps, after Constantin Brancussi’s (sic) iconic modernist sculpture. One became two, and two became many...:



...While making these columns, I noticed the smaller caps tended to nest inside one another, and the color combinations reminded me of Chuck Close’s painted portraits. So I got sidetracked and started on a large self-portrait made entirely of bottle caps. The piece measures 8 feet by 7 feet. No paint is used, except to delineate a few shadows where white board was showing through. In a few cases, the caps are trimmed in order to fit a tight space." - Mary Ellen Croteau



close-up of the nose:

close up of eye in progress:


The final assembled piece displayed for Art on Armitage:


Mary Ellen Croteau is an artist whose work directly addresses the absurdities of social norms, and lays bare the underlying bias and sexist assumptions on which our culture is constructed.
She lives and works in Chicago, IL.

See more of her unusual art here.

a shout out to This Is Colossal for bringing Mary's work to my attention

Art to Rave About. Self-Portrait Made Up Of Ecstacy Pills By Artist Scott Blake.

Artist Scott Blake, a Savannah College of Art and Design graduate, specializes in unique forms of digital mosaic and bar code art. A few years back, he created this self-portrait comprised of Ravers favorite drug, MDMA or 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine, more commonly known as Ecstacy or simply "e".






Scott collected all of the XTC pill images from Dancesafe.org, a harm reduction organization promoting safety within the rave community.

Pixel Dimensions - 5184 x 6480
File Size - 61.3 Megabytes
Color Mode - RGB Color
File Format - Photoshop Flattened
Individual Pill Pixel Dimensions - 144 x 144
Pills Generated - 256

See more of his work here.

Red Vines, Candy & Junk Become Celebrity Portraits In The Hands Of Jason Mecier.

above: Kim Kardashian made of Red Vines & Black Licorice twists

Los Angeles born, and now San Francisco-based, mosaic artist Jason Mecier creates portraits of famous personalities with assemblages crafted of candy, food, yarn, dried beans and just plain junk.

In his licorice mosaics, He artfully twists red and black licorice to create uncanny likenesses of some of today's most popular entertainers and images from popular culture.


above: detail of Kim Kardashian made of Red Vines and Black Licorice

In his "junk" portraits, the objects he uses to craft the images include things relevant to the celebrity or personality of his subject, such as the Campbell's soup cans and banana used to compose a portrait of artist Andy Warhol:



Red vines and black licorice:

Mo' Nique:

Michael C. Hall as Dexter:

Elizabeth Berkely in Showgirls:

Taylor Lautner:

Robert Englund as Freddy Kruger from Nightmare on Elm Street:



Other Candy
Taylor Swift made with Good n' Plenty Candies:


Pam Anderson made of various hard candy and candy bars:

details:

Christina Aguilera made of candy:

The Olsen Twins made of candy:

The Spice Girls made of candy:


Some of his impressive "junk" portraits.

Mary Louise Parker (star of HBO's Weeds):

Conan O'Brien:

Tina Fey:

Chelsea Handler:

Donald Trump and detail:

Frida Kahlo and detail:

Singer Pink:

Kathy Najimy:

RuPaul:

President Obama:



To see more, visit Jason's website.