Portuguese Artist Turns Trash Into Amazing Urban Sculptures of Birds

If humans are good at one thing, it is producing trash. We live in a world where everything is disposable or replaceable and that makes for a big trash problem. While most of this refuse winds up piled in landfills, or drifting through the ocean – some of this garbage ends up as artwork. We have seen artists use garbage materials to create shelters for the homeless and small animal sculptures, but we just can’t get over the awesome, larger than life sculptures made by Portuguese artist Bordalo II.

Bordalo II, creates sculptures of birds in his hometown of Lisbon made entirely from reclaimed trash materials. Collecting everything from abandoned hubcaps and tires to scraps of metal and wood from the streets of the city, Bardalo II assembles these objects into 3D sculptures that take on an incredibly life-like image.

Bordalo II makes a “collage” of the materials of he finds and then paints them to make them look real.

Once all the pieces are assembled, he installs them to blend into the urban landscape of Lisbon.

In its final form, it almost looks like a giant crane is roaming around the city.

Bordalo II was inspired to create urban art by his grandfather who also was a street artist in Lisbon.

Not only are these pieces a great way to recycle trash materials, but they make a clear statement on the amount of waste produced by mankind.

See that animals are most often negatively impacted by the waste we create, it hardly seems accidental that Bordalo II’s sculptures feature animal subjects.

To follow Bordalo II’s work around Lisbon, check out his Instagram account and website. 

All image source: Bordalo II/Facebook