Oddity Central

Oddity Central


Meet Paintboxer – The Dutch Artist Who Paints with His Fists

Posted: 28 Jul 2014 04:11 AM PDT

It's hard to imagine boxing and painting combined to create something artistic. But Dutch boxer Bart van Polanen Petel demonstrates that it's really quite possible to mix a brutal sport and a delicate art form. He puts on his boxing gloves, dips them in paint, and throws punch after punch at a blank canvas wrapped around a punching bag until it is completely covered in chaotic color patterns.

"If life is ultimately a Darwinian struggle for survival, then boxing at least has the virtue of being open about it," says the philosophical boxer. Inspired by its primal nature, painting is Bart's way of paying tribute to the sport of boxing. "Instead of crushing bones and shattering teeth, I use my fists to create," he explained.

Bart says that when he's boxing, he feels a deep connection with the men of the Stone Age and the Middle Ages. He feels a certain animal within him, an aggression that he learned to curb in boxing. But with painting, he's able to let out all that aggression on to the canvas.

paintboxer

Photo-Like Monochromatic Portraits Created with Thousands of Tiny Holes

Posted: 28 Jul 2014 02:45 AM PDT

Norwegian artist Anne-Karin Furunes' portraits might look like black-and-white photographs, but that’s just your eyes playing tricks on you. They're actually paintings made with of thousands and thousands of tiny holes. Anne creates them by punching perforations into large canvases, creating the effect of monochromatic hyper-realistic portraits.

Anne has been perfecting her unique perforation technique since the 1990s, when she was a student of architecture and art at the Art Academy of Trondheim. All the main painters back then used a lot of paint on the canvas, she said, but she wanted to 'enter the canvas' in her own way.

"So I tried to find my own language," she explains. "At that time, I was really interested in photos – old photos, albums, private albums – and I think it was the idea of trying to transform these photos to something physical, something bigger. And to give it a kind of soft treatment so it was, in a way, a memory. Something that is coming and disappearing at the same time." The holes, she said, are symbolic of memories – how they disappear exactly when you try to grasp them.

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Physicist-Turned-Cook Invents Ice Cream That Changes Color as It Melts

Posted: 28 Jul 2014 01:13 AM PDT

The latest invention of Manuel Linares, a Spanish physicist-turned-cook, proves that physics isn't all about boring theories and formulae, it can be really fun too! He's invented a new type of ice cream called 'Xamaleon', made from natural ingredients, that slowly changes color as it melts.

When 37-year-old Manuel decided to switch professions and become a professional cook, he couldn't help adding a bit of his knowledge to his cooking. He recently attended a course in ice cream making at the Hotel Business School Hoffman in Barcelona, where students were encouraged to create a new flavor of ice cream.

Manuel declared that his ice cream would be able to change color,  a statement that earned him laughs from his tutor. But Manuel stuck to his goal, and managed to convince everyone he wasn’t joking. He created 'Xamaleon' – ‘chameleon’ in Catalan – a special ice cream that changes from purple to pink when it melts.

xameleon-ice-cream

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