If you have ever wondered who still uses phone books these days, aside from kindling in the fireplace, one artist turns the pages into unique ink portraits.
Can you remember the last time you cracked open a phone book to look for a number, whether it was for a best friend or a local plumber? Of course not, that is what the internet is for these days. But yet, we still keep receiving those free Yellow Pages every single year. And while most of us use phone books to start fires, level tables, or just throw them out, one artist has taken a new approach to how to use the phone book.
Carlos Zuniga, an artist based in Chile, uses the pages from phone books to create stunning works of art. In his current series, called Next, Zuniga utilizes the pages from the phone book to make portraits. He blocks out portions of the text to create a beautiful image.
According to Zuniga’s biography – “Through the destruction of textual identities, a new layer of representational information is created” and that the work “has to be deciphered from between the lines. Like memory, which is composed of isolated moments that weave a more comprehensive whole.”
All these portraits necessitate not only a vision, but also some planning as well. Zuniga is proud of his ability to actually foresee the image throughout the space of the phone book before even transforming the vision to a portrait made of lines.
So next time you see the phone book as something that is just taking up space in your garbage can, take a closer look and maybe you can do something really quite nifty with it.
For some other great art work, check out works of art made from musical notes or these amazing sand castles and sculptures.
