Bob Marley, 16″ x 20″. All copyrights and reproduction rights remain with the artist
At first glance,
they're just iconic head shots of famous people you've seen many times
before; only the tones of golden brown make them vaguely remarkable.
Allow your eyes
to move from the bigger picture and focus on the finer detail of the
portraits, and the secret of their creation lights up in the mind:
they're all mosaics – made out of the roach papers of smoked joints.
Tune in for “Recycling on a Higher Level.”
This is Chronic
Art, the hand-crafted, cannabis-inspired brainchild of Pittsburgh-based
artist and pot smoker Cliff Maynard. A tattoo artist by trade, the
38-year-old former art student dreamed up the idea for his unique choice
of medium while “studying mosaics in school.” “I just remember sort of
making this connection in my head between the tiles and roach papers,”
he recalls. But if Maynard took his cue from the mosaic masterpieces of
art history, the more popular aesthetic principles of his tattoo art
background also show up in his work in a less than hazy way.
The inventive
aspect of Maynard's pieces has captured the imagination of many, but
there is also meticulous method and craft behind the reefer madness.
With skilled attention to detail and a tattoo artist's steady hand, he
slices the already small roach papers into more intricate shapes, before
slowly assembling them to create the likeness of each celebrated
figure. Lighter and darker toned roaches form the well-known features
and provide light and shade – and you can only wonder at how many joints
were smoked to fill up the artist's palette. Make that ashtray.
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