A magician and master of his own hands-on work has been playing with his food for years, crafting portraits and pop-culture iconography from the particles of salt. Salt has evolved into something of a signature for the artist, with all the elements of a breakthrough viral internet flashpoint mixed with the craftsmanship of an aesthete with a perfectionist streak, similar to artists who work with food.
The artist Sultani Bashir tells Creators he has worked with salt for about seven years, using the unique medium as a form of experimentation. He began working with this medium on his YouTube account, where he routinely made videos of himself creating salt drawings with the help of a timelapse effect.
Videos by VICE
To give dimension to his creations, the artist applies dyes to table salt to enhance the effect of depth and shading. He considers the salt shaker his paintbrush. Backgrounds for every piece are made from black foam, an appropriate contrast for the especially blanched tones of his salt compositions.
“Many drawings are inspired by favorite movie characters and each video takes about two to five hours to make and after its done I mostly reuse same salt again when possible.”
“Obviously, it is not an expensive art material, but it is very time consuming. Not every drawing that I’ve done is from first try. The idea behind destroying the final image is to show that nothing is permanent and the beauty of such an art form is in its process of making it.”
Find more instances of Sultani Bashir’s artwork on his YouTube page and his Instagram page.
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