While museum walls have long been lined with oil and pastel works on canvas, mixed media art substitutes conventional materials with avant-garde alternatives, transforming everyday objects into vibrant masterpieces. With no set rules, mixed media embraces an “anything goes” philosophy, which can result in some pretty wacky works. So, take a closer look, because the following artworks defy traditional expectations and definitely deserve their place on any list of wacky mixed media art.
Let’s start at the bottom, with the artistic qualities of excrement. Chris Ofili’s aptly titled 1993 work, Painting with Shit On It, combines oil, polyester resin and pigment on canvas with elephant dung. Inspired by cave paintings in Zimbabwe’s Matopos Hills, Ofili’s dot technique and choice of medium was quite the departure from his illustrious predecessors at the Royal College of Art. However, his groundbreaking creation is a masterpiece of contemplative, non-representational art that highlights both the sacred nature of elephant dung in Zimbabwean culture and proclaims pride in the artist’s Black heritage.
© Chris Ofili. Painting with Shit On It. Image credit: British Council Collection.
Next on the list is the recent Is It Cake? trend for hyper-realistic art made from food. It turns out, though, that the origins of this contemporary social media craze go all the way back to Babylonian times when bread was moulded into the shape of humans or animals. The art form really flourished during the Renaissance with “Banquet Art” for the Roman Catholic Church. In fact, culinary craftsmanship and art have been trending on and off for hundreds of years. In the late 19th century, a combination of dairy farming, mixed media art and proto-feminism became an unlikely thing in the form of butter-sculpting. At the time, when family crops failed, many women living in rural America earned additional income, or “butter money”, from scalding pans, setting milk, and curing cream in what became known as “Bread and Butter States” such as Minnesota. It turns out those with an artistic bent could supplement their income further with a bit of butter sculpting. This craft transformed the life of one Caroline Shawk Brooks, who, with little artistic training, created idealised portraits of classical figures such as Iolanthe. Her bas-relief bust of the Fairy Queen, cocooned in a delicate mesh fabric and brushed with foliage, for the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia captivated audiences. Brooks then toured a life-sized Iolanthe to the Paris World's Fair in 1878 where crowds paid to see her work, which she meticulously cooled with ice. Her work challenged the notion that “butter money” was insignificant, and proved it could even lead to significant artistic achievement.
Stereograph bust showing The Dreaming Iolanthe (1876), a study in butter by Caroline Shawk Brooks.
Caroline S. Brooks with a butter sculpture bas-relief of Columbus for the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago, 1893.
Perhaps the only upside to this year’s cold and wet British summer is a distinct lack of flies. Artist Damien Hirst did his own bit to help out pteronarcophobics with wacky, mind-bending works like Black Sun (1997), which use flies and resin on canvas. Initially appearing as a monochromatic void, closer inspection reveals a tangle of lifeless fly carcasses. Hirst’s recurring use of flies, evident in work like A Hundred Years (1990), Who's Afraid of the Dark? (2002) and Fear (2002), underscores his fascination with death as an inescapable part of life.
Black Sun, Damien Hirst, 1997. Photo: Gazanfarulla Khan @ Flickr
If you’ve seen the film Dune, our next wacky mixed media artwork, which uses sand and oil on canvas, might remind you of the sandworms on Arrakis. André Masson’s L’Ombre de l’Herbe is displayed at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. A French Surrealist, Masson allowed sand to flow freely and create its own natural pattern outside of his artistic direction. L’Ombre de l’Herbe meaning The Shadow of Grass, evokes the ebb and flow of the sea, its peaks of colour reminiscent of lush, sandy beaches.
André Masson, ‘L’Ombre de l’Herbe’ (1957).
One of the most intriguing mixed media processes is mechanical painting. Developed by Matthew Bolton in late 18th century Soho, the technique used a combination of media and industrial technology to artificially reproduce oil paintings at a fraction of the cost. At the time, many thought it was an early form of photography, but, while the exact process remains unknown, it appears to have involved etched aquatint on a copper plate which was printed onto paper and transferred onto canvas to be finally painted over in oil by semi-professional artists known as ‘the boys’. Although it was a short-lived experiment, mechanical painting continues to puzzle authenticators and art historians to this day, especially when it comes to the work of Angelica Kauffmann whom Bolton took a keen interest in reproducing.
Philippe J De Loutherbourg, ‘Hampstead Heath, Summer’ (1787) Catalogued as an oil mechanical painting.
Wacky mixed media comes in all shapes, sizes, smells, and states of life. Its inherent diversity makes it exciting to discover and appreciate. By substituting traditional tools with sand, flies, dung or even dairy produce, the world of mixed media art offers a smorgasbord of wacky, fascinating creations waiting to be explored.
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