Conceptual artist Federico Uribe uses many unexpected, everyday materials to produce his insanely detailed sculptures. In this particular collection, the Miami-based Colombian artist shows us that pencils aren’t just for writing or drawing anymore.
He uses colorful pieces of fragmented pencils, sometimes held together with zip-ties, to create sculpted landscapes, animals, paintings, and even three-dimensional human figures. His selected medium is more customarily used to actually produce the final artwork. However, in this work, Uribe transforms the pencils into the art itself.
Uribe started as a painter but eventually became drawn to the “neglected beauty of simple objects in daily use.” His bio explains, “He began to observe them with care, collect them, set them side by side and combine them, so that they became unusual instruments of a new aesthetic, full of color, irony and lively playfulness.”
