Sculptural Portraits From Paintbrush Handles by Rebecca Szeto.

The World Is Your Oyster, 2013 / Oil on carved paintbrush.

Dark Habits, 2001 / Oil on carved paintbrush.

Concubine, 2010-2012 / Oil on carved paintbrush.

Reflections on Beaty, 2013 / Mirror, oil on carved paintbrush (installation)

Untitled (Blue), 2013 / Oil, acrylic on carved paintbrush.

Geisha, 2010 / Oil on carved paintbrush.

Daughter Of Fortune (Ode to Allende reduc), 2010-2013 / Oil on carved paintbrush.

San Francisco-based artist Rebecca Szeto is the creator of one of the most captivating art projects I’ve ever seen – sculptural artworks made from old paintbrush handles. A homage to an often lost sensibility and quality of Old Masters’ works, these portraits (con)fuse realities between politics and consumerism, pointing to an endless loop of transformative regeneration. The brush is ripe for wordplay: Women’s work and their “brush off” from much of art history as well as material puns about bristling at waste and patriarchy.

“These works play with notions of re-forming beauty and value, offering a critique on consumerism, women’s work, and a curious entanglement of class dynamics in Leisure & Labor – Trash & Treasure. I use humble, end-of-life, mass-produced materials inspired by my experience as a faux finisher and initially by Velázquez’s 17th century painting, Las Meninas. The paintbrush is self-referential, acting as both subject and object. It refers to the history of painting, through the medium of paint, using its own tool.”

Paintbrush Portraits is an ongoing series since 1999. See more examples of her incredible work here.

[Images courtesy of Rebecca Szeto. Discovered via Colossal.]