Artist Transforms Old Recycled Plastic Into Stunning Impressionistic 3D Animal Sculptures

A lot of goods and products we purchase are made from plastic. And often we get tired of those goods or they get replaced and we end up getting rid of them. Sometimes they end up in thrift stores. And usually the might end up getting bought and reused or eventually thrown away.

Japanese-born artist Sayaka Ganz has another use for them though. Ganz uses the plastics we discard as the materials for her stunning sculptures. Recycling them into galloping horses or flying gulls or swimming dolphins.

“I grew up with Shinto animist belief that all things in the world have spirits. Thus, when I see discarded items on the street or thrift store shelves, I feel a deep sadness for them and I am moved to make these abandoned objects happy." Ganz explains. "My sympathy goes out equally to all discarded objects regardless of materials, but my current working material of choice is plastic. I use mostly common household items to create animal forms with a sense of movement and self-awareness."

Ganz uses plastics because of the curved lines they contain and also because they come in a variety of colors. Ganz collects the plastics and sorts them into their colors in bins in her basement, deciding on what to make when she has found an adequate amount of one color.

Her current interest is depicting animals in motion. Ganz begins by building a wire mesh structure which she then paints to match the color of the plastic. She then attaches the plastic to it by drilling holes in the plastic and threading through electrical wire, building the sculpture up gradually.

"I manipulate and assemble them together as brush strokes to create an effect similar to a Van Gogh painting in three dimensions." Ganz notes.

You can check out some pictures of her work below, along with a video showing her process. Visit the artist's website to see more of her work.