When I think back to high school, there were always a few art teachers obsessed with the concept of “mixed media.” They were the ones who wanted students to break out of the norms of pencil and paper in order to do something new, and would lose their art-loving minds whenever a someone showed up with work that incorporated unorthodox materials. If artist Dino Tomic had similar teachers, then it’s likely that his gunpowder artwork is responsible for absolutely melting their brains.
A recent post on io9 ignited our new-found obsession with Tomic’s fiery pieces that he’s been creating for some time now for his Instagram. The technique of arranging gunpowder on a surface and igniting it seems simple enough, but it’s Tomic’s ability to create such detailed pieces that’s truly breathtaking.
Each step of the process is uniquely beautiful for a few different reasons. First, there’s a beauty in the meticulous construction of each piece that basically uses gunpowder as the pixels of an image. Second, there’s the obviously bad-ass burning of the “drawings” that are a unique and fleeting moment that can never truly be recreated. And third, the image that’s burned into the backing is something completely different than a person with a pen, pencil, or paint could ever create because–in a certain way–it’s as if the flame itself were actually the artist.
These are merely a few of our favorite nerd-centric pieces that Tomic has created, and judging by the recent frequency of the posts on his Instagram, there’ll likely be a lot more in the future.
Have you seen this sort of art before? Anyone want to chip in to buy one of the pieces on Tomic’s Etsy page? Let’s discuss in the comments below!
Image: Warner Bros.
