Recycle, reuse, rethink how we look at garbage.  Tires are an especially volatile item, as they take up space and emit terrible fumes when burned.  Check out Oddee’s collection of creative sculptures made from discarded tires.

Link  | Above example found at mo_metalart’s Flickr set.

Previously on Neatorama – Tired.

Update 10/15/09 by Alex: The artist is Mirko Siakkou-Flodin, and this particular tire sculpture is at the Jumeirah Beach Residence in Dubai, UAE. Oddee is a great source of many interesting things, and they usually credit their photos, so I wonder why they didn’t do it in this instance.

These terribly awesome monsters are products of the mind of New York artist Jason Hackenwerth. He makes both wearable balloon suits and balloon sculptures. Each creature takes about 8 hours to make, totally worth it in my opinion.

Link Via Craftzine

Talk about computer viruses! Sculptor Forrest McCluer took salvaged 30 old PCs from the landfill and turned them into sculptures of viruses (the biological kind). This one above is inspired by the T4 Bacteriophage:

The “T9 Track Virus” is another version of the T4 Bacteriophage. It consists of PC power supply cables, CD-ROMs, sections of 9-track magnetic tapes, and parts of floppy drives. When the piece is on display, McCluer scatters a pile of unraveled 9-track tapes under it to represent the bacteria cells destroyed by the T9 Bacteriophage Virus.

Link | More at Forrest McCluer’s Website

Also at the Neatorama Shop: T4 Bacteriophage Plush Toy by Giant Microbes

Oddee has a collection of some truly amazing ice sculptures, the most impressive of which is this massive ice castle in China. The other sculptures are also fascinating though. It always amazes me how much artistry is required to make one of these pieces when it will only melt away eventually anyway.

Link

Women’s Day has a fantastic collection of sand sculptures all of which have interesting faces carved into them. I think sand sculpting is so amazing, it’s so much work for something that will be destroyed so quickly after its creation. While the one above is my favorite, I think they are all work a second, even third, look.

Link

In the lush Australian old-growth forest of Eukalyptus of Mount Dandenongs, Victoria, are a set of mesmerizing sculptures by a self-taught artist named William Ricketts.

Environmental Graffiti blog has the story:

Hidden deep within a lush Australian rainforest are a set of mystical Aborigine sculptures seemingly merged into the natural surroundings. Moss covered torsos of men, women and children protrude from tree trunks and boulders. Some reach heavenward with widespread wings, others envelop each other protectively – all are symbols of the relationship the indigenous Australian Aborigines have with nature.

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by oezicomix.

For the past ten years, artist Marizio Savini has been making sculptures from thousands of pieces of chewed bubble gum, and sells his creations for as much as £40,000 each.

His sculptures include a life-size buffalo, a grizzly bear and businessmen doing gymnastics.

Why chewing gum?

"…because it seemed to me an amazingly versatile material compared to those used by the traditional arts such as painting…

"I believe that in my work … this material is redeemed and acquires a capacity and it has an expressive dignity of its own. I work the chewing gum when it is warm and manipulate it with a knife just like some traditional material like clay.

The most important step is the fixing of the sculptures with formaldehyde and antibiotic."

Link – via blogs

Food art is a strange field, but I can’t help but love people who not only decided to play with their food, but make a living out of it. Over at WebUrbanist, they have spotlighted a few great food artists, one specializes in bento, one in food carvings, one in landscapes of food and then there’s the sculpture/photographer above. They may make you love art their art work, or they might make you hungry, either way, it’s certainly not a bad thing.

Link

Chris Gilmour, a U.K. artist represented by the Perugi Artecontemporanea Gallery in Padua, Italy, creates amazing sculptures using cardboard.

Link – via haha.nu