These massive mosaics are made out of millions of hand-rolled colorful paper quills

Created using hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of hand-rolled paper seeds/quills, Ilhwa Kim’s art-pieces are grand yet detailed. Each hand-rolled paper seed acts as a pixel, playing a small role in the grander scheme of things. Millions of these ‘pixels’ come together to create some staggeringly beautiful pieces of art, which are now on display at The House Of Fine Art (HOFA) in London.

Titled Real Life Architecture, Kim’s latest exhibition “will feature more than 20 large panel artworks. Pieces that explore a liminal space between human perception of existence and the true state of reality, a body of abstract artworks representing true life without the limitations of senses”, HOFA said.

Designer: Ilhwa Kim

Kim’s abstract works are impactful artworks composed of thousands of ‘Hanji’ paper seeds whose inherent dynamism creates works of art that shift between painting and sculpture, delivering art as a new experience of discovery, dynamism, and intrigue.

Kim’s works are larger than life, but start with small, humble pieces of paper. Each segment or seed in these pieces starts as a strip of paper that’s rolled into its flat ‘clump’, and then stuck on a massive canvas. What Kim eventually creates is a dizzying mosaic of thousands of such paper seeds. The South Korean artist’s current collection, titled “Real Life Architecture” explores the ‘chasm’ between what we see and the tactile reality of our visions. The artworks look like Post-Impressionist paintings, with each seed acting as a defined stroke, almost like the works of Van Gogh, Gauguin, or Cézanne.

“My seed works contain the dialogue between our senses and the tactile world surfaces, dreaming to be the monument of our sensory architecture.” – Ilhwa Kim

“Cezanne was right in saying that our senses do not represent the outer world as it is. However, this does not mean we cannot or do not have to represent things as they are. Without knowing the surface of the apple, for instance, we cannot learn how to cut the apple or how to make juice out of it”, Kim said.

You can view Ilhwa Kim’s artwork on the HOFA website, or visit the gallery between October 6th and 20th, 2022.

The post These massive mosaics are made out of millions of hand-rolled colorful paper quills first appeared on Yanko Design.

Japanese artist’s face masks and wearables give off futuristic, dystopian world vibes

Artist Ikeuchi Hiroto was obsessed with pop culture influences right from his childhood. The cinematic world of the Star Wars, the imaginary robotic animals of Zoids, or the intimidating form of the Gundam. In his early childhood days, Ikeuchi started crafting pieces out of PC parts and models. Later on, when he got hang of things, he graduated to more refined gadgets and mech gear creations to express his cyberpunk love. The artist started using industrial parts and repurposing ready-made plastic to achieve the form for his creations.

Recently the funk-obsessed artist joined forces with Balenciaga to create cyborg creations under the SS 2022 campaign. His largest-ever solo work exhibiting a wide range of high-tech mechanical masks is currently on display in an exhibition in Tokyo.  These masks transform the wearer into a cyborg of sorts, giving them an alienated appearance reminiscent of a future dystopian world. His work mostly employs recycled materials like motherboards and old plastic wiring. The reason is, as he explains, “It’s just that recent products are simple and small, and their parts don’t give me much room for customization, so old products allow me to use more parts for my work.”

The solo exhibition is showcasing the custom mechanical masks, VR headsets, wearable exoskeleton developed by Skeletonics (robotics company), and interactive works developed in collaboration with Prototype Inc. (a design firm). His exoskeletons are the perfect blend between fashion, art and tech – virtually blurring the lines between them all. Working with the icons of the fashion industry, Ikeuchi gave his opinion by saying, “I think it’s great that someone is redefining my work in their own subjective way, just like I use ready-made products in my own contexts.”

The wearables sculptures here are highlighted by the series of headgear having intricate gadgets such as reality masks, headphones and flashdrives. All of the creations function lending each one of them an experimental aesthetic. That privilege is reserved for the buyers of the artwork!

Designer: Ikeuchi Hiroto

The post Japanese artist’s face masks and wearables give off futuristic, dystopian world vibes first appeared on Yanko Design.

LEGO master builder Mitsuru Nikaido creates detailed animal sculptures that will shock and awe you

Mitsuru Nikaido, a Kurashiki-based artist, makes sculptures of different animal species from LEGO building blocks.

Mitsuru Nikaido has been creating intricate sculptures out of LEGO building blocks for years. Backed with a wide-ranging and diverse portfolio, Nikaido feels most inspired to build his sculptures in the shapes of different animal species.

Designer: Mitsuru Nikaido

When constructing his sculptures, the Japanese LEGO enthusiast tends towards a cyberpunk aesthetic and gray-scale color palette to highlight his signature style. His varied collection includes LEGO sculptures of walruses, Huntsman spiders, crayfish, cicadas, triceratops, beetles, shoebills, and even microscopic water bears.

Based in Kurashiki, Nikaido mostly utilizes the gray-toned LEGO bricks, only relying on brightly-colored bricked to accentuate an animal’s defining feature, like a pair of electric eyes or a lustrous beak. While any one of Nikaido’s sculptures can impress without any movement, some of his works feature spring-loaded limbs, like flexible joints and a wagging tail, that shine a spotlight on the potential of LEGO building blocks.

Nikaido mostly exhibits his sculptures on his social media channels, and a select few of his pieces of artwork are for sale on his website. Alternatively, interested viewers can see his sculptures on display at the LEGO House in Denmark.

Nikaido’s Mecha Cicada creation.

Nikaido’s Mecha Beetle creation.

Nikaido’s Mecha Water Bear sculpture.

The post LEGO master builder Mitsuru Nikaido creates detailed animal sculptures that will shock and awe you first appeared on Yanko Design.

The LEGO Art sets give creative adults a different way to transform their passion into art!

Every weekend brings forth a new dilemma – what is the most entertaining way to spend this weekend without stepping out in this quickly escalating COVID situation? Well, we now have LEGO to thank to make our weekend castle-making activity (consider this writer guilty of spending hours playing with LEGO creating her personal billionaire homes) a little more adult. What I mean is, the LEGO Art is here to make playing with LEGO more intricate and also creating an artwork that definitely deserves that coveted shelf space!

Designed to help adults relax and recharge as they transform a blank canvas (or in this case, small interlinking base plates) using LEGO tiles. Each set can be reimagined in a number of different ways to express the personality of each different builder and to make it easy and simple for pop culture lovers to refresh the LEGO Art piece on display in their house.

Being a hardcore IronMan fan (genius, philanthropist, playboy, billionaire – what more can we ask for!), that’s one of the first sets I would be working on. However, the Game of Thrones setup is a close second of mine!

Designer: Samuel Liltorp Johnson, Creative Design Lead for LEGO Art

This nano-coated textile air purifier beats like a heart to show the air quality in your home

Surges in design innovation happen with new developments in technology and science – transforming tired and traditional, albeit reliable, designs into timely, artful, and well-defined reinventions. The classic air purification system has a reputation as being a top gadget for designers who hope to change the face of air purification with their own interpretation of the aged machinery. Air purifiers also have a reputation for being bulky and unattractive from a purely aesthetic perspective, making it the ideal, blank canvas for designers to prove their creative chops. Consider them the smartphones of the 90’s – a purely utilitarian device that is yet to grow into its complete user-friendly and aesthetic appeal. That is until the Onda was created.

Joca van der Horst recently showcased his award-winning interpretation of the air purifier, Onda, and he’s managed to produce a textile that cleans the air and is also sure to turn some heads, thanks in part to new scientific development. Through a lot of heavy technological research (especially during the pandemic that rumors say could even be airborne!), it’s been proven that nano-coatings comprised of titanium dioxide and copper oxide help to remove polluted air particles through photoactivity during photosynthesis and pollutant treatment. Using natural light, this special nano-coating silently and invisibly tackles and removes air pollutants. Describing the scientific process, Horst explains the nano-coating development in simpler terms, “When combined with this chemical coating, the textile uses daylight to create a reaction with pollution such as soot and odor, transforming them into harmless water molecules.”

Now that we understand the scientific aspect, let’s look at Horst’s textile design. Onda is a personalized, framed canvas with an abstract, almost concentric, display of artwork that’s used to both help purify the air in any given room and inform users of the room’s air quality. By pressing anywhere on Onda’s fabric, users activate a light beneath the canvas that either pulsates slowly and gently to indicate cleaner air quality or rapidly and irregularly to alert users of air pollution. Using daylight to initiate chemical reactions, Onda applies air purification capabilities to a textile that is both customizable and tangible. Horst primarily hoped to make the process of air purification a more thoughtful and intimate experience for those of us who live or work in areas that require clean air for productivity or for a general sense of peace.

Designer: Joca van der Horst

Constructed using wood and fabric, Onda is a piece of textile art that functions as an air purifier. The fabric used to produce Onda has a thin coating of titanium dioxide and copper oxide mixture, which reacts with sunlight to transform air pollution into molecules of water. The design weaved into the textile is also customizable and changeable.

While studying at Eindhoven University of Technology, Joca van der Horst stumbled upon a nano-coating that cleans and purifies air through a silent and invisible process. This discovery prompted the young designer to bring air purification to the world of textiles.

Users can momentarily boost air purification by pressing and holding the piece, lighting the frame to emit ultraviolet light, the most efficient method of rapid air purification,” describes Joca van der Horst. Like checking on the status of our water filters, Onda’s air purification status can be managed and its nano-coating can be renewed.


When a room holds air that’s healthy to breathe in, then a light beneath the textile fabric will pulsate slowly, like calm breathing, informing users that the air quality is good or normal.


When a room holds air that is unhealthy to breathe in, then the fabric’s light sends out rapid, stressed bursts of light to signal that the air quality is poor.

“As both nanoparticles and air are invisible, I used lights as a metaphor for what is happening,” tells Van der Horst. By turning air quality into something that we can both visually and emotionally understand, Onda offers a refreshing take on the air purification system, bringing intimacy and subtle elegance to a process that perhaps only a few of us intricately comprehend, so that we can learn from and touch it with our own two hands.

NVIDIA AI turns crude doodles into photorealistic landscapes

Imagine if you had the power to turn your old-school Microsoft Paint doodles into actual art. Well, NVIDIA's latest AI-driven software can do just that. The GauGAN image creator, named after the French post-Impressionist painter, uses generative adve...

Samsung’s 43-inch Frame TV is like a fancy art piece for your wall

When Samsung announced The Frame TV earlier this year, it quickly became a product of interest for people with minimalist taste. That's because it's essentially designed to double as an art piece, and its aesthetics can easily blend in with any paint...

15 Cool Alien Artworks from Etsy

Are you a huge sci-fi fan? Do you like aliens? Looking for some new, awesome, and beautiful art to hang on your walls? Well, the search is over, because I have a list of fifteen cool Alien artworks from Etsy! Ranging from the incredibly cheap, to the unbelievably expensive, there’s something here for every art connoisseur.

Read on to look at the list!

Space Decal


I love how this isn’t just a decal, but a decal that makes the wall look like its bursting open. I think it’s a very cool effect and the image on the decal is beautiful. It really does transform a living room into a spaceship.

Alien Skull With Tentacles


My goodness, if I told you this was hand carved, would you believe me? It certainly is, and it’s absolutely breathtaking. More spectacular pieces from this same artist also appear on this list, because I just couldn’t look away.

Alien Parody of Famous Painting


We’ve all seen this painting before right? But wait, is that an alien instead of a person? I’ve always been a fan of taking already famous pieces and seeing them altered into something new. It’s a silly painting, but it’s impressive all the same.

Alien Predator Wood Engraving


Another gorgeous wood artwork that I just can’t get enough of. This one is recognizable as a character from the Alien movie franchise. Fitting for an article dedicated to aliens right?

London UFO Invasion Lino Print


I love this unique artwork. I don’t see art like this too often, as its a style that doesn’t seem to be all that popular, but look at its simplicity. It may be simple, but it’s intricate and detailed at the same time. The scene its portraying is great too, an alien invasion on the city of London.

Gray Mass of Tentacles


So when you look at this one, what do you see? I see a gray mass of tentacles, which is why I titled it this way, but the thing is, it’s a bit abstract. Not everyone is a fan of abstract art, but I like how it’s up for interpretation, and that there’s something eerie about this painting.

Cute Little Alien


By far the most adorable piece of art on this list, I had to include for those of you who are looking for less creepy alien artworks. It’s perfect for decorating a child’s room as well. Gosh, I can’t stop thinking about how cute it is.

Creepy Alien Fish


Speaking of creepy, here is one of the creepiest pieces on the list. By the same artist as the Gray Mass of Tentacles, this one isn’t abstract. We can see that it’s a fish, an otherworldly, terrifying fish.

Ancient Alien Guy


Okay, he’s not an alien, I know. But this is an article that’s all about aliens, so I had to include him. He’s one of my favorite memes ever, and here he is on a poster, looking cute as heck. I know I’d hang this on my wall.

Alien Wood Carving


The third wood carving on this list, and once again, I’m blown away by how fantastic it is. Just breathtaking.

Alien Fish Undersea Painting


I absolutely love the colors on this piece. It’s so bright, vibrant, and fun. It reminds me of the Beatles, “Yellow Submarine.” Remember that movie? This is one of my favorite art styles ever.

Alien in Nightgown Painting


Sexy, or scary? You decide. I think it’s mostly scary, but it’s a gorgeous painting as well, and very unique.

Alien Metal Sculpture


Looking at all this art, I am reminded of my lack of artistic talent. Anyway, look at this amazing sculpture! It’s made out of metal! And it’s made out of recycled material.

UFO Hand Embroidered Art


I love the quote on this piece, and I love how it’s made out of fabric. It’s unique in that it’s not a painting or a carving like most of the items on this list, but it’s all embroidered by hand. Very cool.

Alien on Newspaper


The last selection of the list, and a piece that I love very much.

Did you fall in love with any of this wonderful pieces? There’s tons more to dig through on Etsy, so be sure to have a look there!