Artists Turn Kids’ Clay into Grotesque Sculptures of Their Neighbors

Images courtesy the artist

An acute fascination with people-watching inspired Dutch designers Ward van Gemert & Adriaan van der Ploeg, a duo otherwise known as Nightshop, to start sculpting the faces of their neighbors using a resin-based children’s clay. The 30 life-sized busts in The Strangers/The People In Our Street are modeled after the people walking around outside Nightshop’s Rotterdam based studio. On this street there’s both a methadone clinic as well as a hospital, so the two artist had a wide variety of profiles to work from.

The faces are cast from a bizarre color pallette and have jagged and grotesque features, sort of like the characters in Beavis and Butthead. The project marks a step in a new direction for the designers, who tend to produce works with a more utilitarian quality—like this set of custom decorated office furniture. ”We also really like to make objects without a function that’s just telling a story,” van der Ploeg tells The Creators Project in an email. Now, the designers can stare at their neighbors for as long as the want.

Check out more of the busts below:

See more of Nightshop’s work on their website.

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