These Powerful Illustrations Walk The Line Between Gorgeous and Bizarre

The first thing that comes to mind when scrolling through the Instagram gallery of the art project Useless Treasures is “bizarre.” Yet the objects and forms depicted are so real and familiar, and they certainly belong to our world – they are just broken down into pieces then stitched together to form a completely new element imbued with a new unique meaning.

The resulting aesthetics is something beyond bizarre – it’s a delicious mix of beauty, romance, satire, and humor that gives mundane concepts and objects a fresh interpretation. Most of the time it is a sharp, witty and brutally honest reflection of modernity, but the anonymous Berlin-based artist behind the project sometimes also treats us with sugary works that are still weird, but unexpectedly pleasing to the eye. 

The thing that mostly pops out in the Useless Treasures gallery is the great contrast between ideas, ideals and human experiences in general. What someone may see as mundane, insignificant and ugly is given a “second glance”, another life and an exciting story. There’s a masterfully crafted tension between beauty and horror, high and low, practicality and fantasy. There’s love, futurism and nostalgia.

As the artist explains, the images are meant to fly directly from their head into the viewer’s heart. Give them a chance to win yours by exploring the gallery below! 

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