Sarajevo Roses – Painful War Memories Etched in Asphalt
They sound like something beautiful, and they are quite nice to look at, but as soon as you learn the story of the Sarajevo Roses, you realize they are really the legacy of a truly tragic event, the Bosnian War of the 1990s. Between 1992 and 1996, Bosnian Serb Forces bombarded the city of Sarajevo […]
The Mind-Blowingly Realistic Wine Paintings of Thomas Arvid
If you’ve been hanging around Oddity Central for a while, you probably know I have a thing for hyperrealism. I find it amazing how some artists can simply guide a paintbrush to create photograph-like artworks that almost always fool the naked eye. Case in point, Thomas Arvid, a self-taught painter who creates wine-related paintings that look […]
Artist Turns Confiscated Scissors into Creepy Spider Sculptures
Every year, the Transportation Security Administration confiscates countless objects deemed dangerous from passengers boarding flights at airport terminals across the US. Apart from guns, knives or aerosol, a lot of scissors end up in their recycling bin. Enter Christopher Locke, an artist who figured out he could actually use scissors to create creepy sculptures of […]
Eco-Otome – Japan’s Solution to Embarrassing Toilet Noise
The Eco-Otome is a Japanese gizmo that’s intended to make using restrooms other than your own less awkward. Basically it emits a soothing sound meant to cover any embarrassing toilet noises you might be making. Ok, so this isn’t a very new invention, in fact it’s been around for around three years, but I thought […]
Mind-Blowing Charcoal Mural Is a Finger-Painting Masterpiece
Fingers are definitely not the weirdest thing we’ve seen artists paint with (just check out this tongue painter and the girl who paints with gravity) but I had no idea someone could use their fingertips to create such detailed work. We first featured Judith Braun’s finger paintings a few months ago, but while her artworks […]
Who Needs an Education When You Can Eat Hot Coal
People will eat the weirdest things. In the past we’ve featured strange eating habits like munching on bars of soap, gobbling handfuls of sand and eating sponges, but Ambuli Abu, from Coimbatore, India, is the only man I know of who can actually eat red-hot coal. I’ve seen people consume some of the hottest foods on […]
Chinese Artist Creates Transformers Theme Park
It might look like the set of a new low-budget Transformers movie, but Mr. Iron Robot is actually a newly-inaugurated Transformers-themed park in Jiaxing City, China’s Zhejiang Province. 49-year-old artist Zhu Kefeng and his team have spent the last 10 years building giant metal robots from recycled iron and steel parts. He started out by […]
Chinese Village Gives Every Villager Gold and Silver Bars
To celebrate the 40th anniversary of a village-owned business, Changjiang Village, in China’s Jinagsu Province, has given every one f its 3,000 villagers 100-gram bars of gold and silver. It’s no secret that China has the world’s fastest growing major economy, but some of its residents like to flaunt their riches anyway. Take Changjiang village, for […]
Zombie Shopping Mall – A Real-Life “Dawn of the Dead” Experience
If you’ve always wondered it must be like to actually experience a zombie apocalypse, then Zombie Shopping Mall is just the thing for you. You’ll be briefed and armed by a special police unit and pitted against a horde of zombies in a creepy condemned mall. Sounds awesome, yes? Remember the Zombie Boot Camp we […]
Coolest Finds of the Week #33
Li Wei – The Flying Buddhist Monk (News.com.au) Romanian Fashion House Makes World’s Longest Bridal Train (Yahoo Shine) Brazil Real-Life Rapunzel (The Sun) Awesome Fences Made of Recycled Sporting Goods (Environmental Graffiti) Steampunk Corkscrew is Incredibly Cool (YouTube) World’s Biggest “My Little Pony” Fan (Daily Mail) Poo-Powered Rickshaw Is First of Its Kind (Huff Post) […]
The Gun Powder Drawings of Cai Guo Qiang
Also known as China’s most explosive artist, Cai Guo Qiang uses gun powder to create some truly unique works of art. His technique of igniting gun powder on a paper canvas is considered a new medium of contemporary artistic expression. Fire and explosion seems to be a very popular art theme these days. We’ve recently […]
Serene Seascape Mural Made of 500,000 Fishhooks
Cuban artist Yoan Capote uses all kinds of unusual materials to create beautiful art installations. For one of his latest project, Isla, he used around 500,000 fishhooks to build a photo-like seascape mural. Throughout the years we’ve featured a lot of talented artists with the power of turning everyday objects into stunning masterpieces, and today […]
Beautiful Leila Khaled Portrait Made of 3,500 Lipsticks
Last year, Palestinian artist Amer Shomali paid homage to Leila Khaled, a woman revolutionary who became famous as “the poster girl of Palestinian militancy” after hijacking a plane, in 1969. He created a unique portrait made of 3,500 lipsticks for an art exhibition at Birzeit University. We’ve featured many awesome pixelated portraits on Oddity Central, […]
Urine Iron Man Wins Art Competition
The title is a little misleading, so to make things clear, we’re talking about the face of Iron Man made of real urine, in a toilet bowl. This unusual artwork was actually considered better than 600 other entries in a popular art competition. You don’t often get the chance to associate Iron Man with urine, […]
Chinese Family Turn Abandoned Toilet into Cozy Home
“There’s no place like home!”, I believe the saying goes, and this modest migrant family from China proves it applies even when home is an abandoned public toilet in the city of Shenyang. Zeng Lingjun was born in a small village, in the Jilin Province of Northeastern China. As a boy, he dreamed of one […]