This Artist Dunks Books and Other Objects Into Gloss Paint, With Awesome Results

Artist Shane Bradford is known for submerging a variety of household objects into paint emulsion. By letting the paint dry, thicker drops fall from the object, creating a cool effect not unlike icicles. The result makes his art look like it's melting—in the best way possible.

Most interesting (in my opinion) are his books. The artist will painstakingly dip books in a variety of different coloring and let gravity do its part; the process can take as long as a year to complete. The idea is that the objects lose their original meaning, but gain a new one. The new creations look a lot like a permanent sand sculpture.

"I would suggest it derives from the way it records my increasing ability to manipulate and work the sand from the bottom up, and nothing more," Bradford said. "In this way it records in microcosm the idea of EVOLUTION itself, which is cosmic in scale! ....But by contrast on a mundane, everyday kind of level. So in the end the message is simple; in the cosmos of the 'self' things have a remarkable quality of being infinite and insignificant simultaneously. That is something that is not supposed to happen in the real world."

Shane Bedford

More information at www.shanebradford.com, Artsy, and www.v1gallery.com.