“What do you want me to do with a basketball, paint? Well, ok!” These are the words of a remarkable artist at the beginning of a video which shows her painting a detailed portrait of retired NBA superstar Yao Ming.
She paints unbelievably with the help of a basketball and red paint on a white canvas without the help of anything else. She describes herself as an artist who paints, but without a brush. Yi Hong is one of those remarkable artists who are way too alternative to fit under a movement of art. In what seems almost surreal, she dips the basketball in a bowl of paint and bounces it on the canvas slowly but surely, again and again. Just as slowly as she bounces, the painting comes to life and you have a realistic and almost convincing portrait of the NBA superstar Yao Ming unfolding right in front of your eyes.
She only used a print of Ming to look at it so that she could learn the image mentally for accuracy. The video has gained more than 400,000 views in just a few days and the artist recently mentioned on her Facebook page that she is more than flattered by all the attention. Yi Hong is a Chinese artist based in Shanghai, but has lived in Borneo in Indonesia, and in Australia before settling where she lives now.
Artists like her tell the world that art can be created from just about anything, and sometimes formal equipment, materials and stationary may just not be required if you have the talent to do what it takes. You could also take a look at other remarkable artists like Jim Lee, who sketched Batman on his iPad. Another artist revealed his penchant for all things postmodern, when he revealed his Star Wars Trilogy posters. Another unbelievable artist connected 6,239 dots to draw Mona Lisa.
