Artist Robert Brandenburg brings dull paintings back to life. Taking old paintings with boring subjects, he adds a twist that brings them to an entirely new level. With Brandenburg’s creative touch, found art becomes fine art.

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Robert Brandenburg describes his art style as “Pop Surrealist Intervention Art”. For those outside of the walls of an art history class, it means he intervenes in otherwise boring paintings; turning them into parodies of pop culture that tug on our nostalgic feelings in interesting ways. Pooh could explain further, but Tigger’s had a bad day.

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There are few cultural icons as innocent as Norman Rockwell and Woody from the Toy Story films. Such powerful perceived innocence only prompts Robert Brandenburg to further adjust the perspective of the viewer.

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Brandenburg enjoys slipping in pop culture figures from contemporary films into his paintings. In this piece, the terrifying man in a bunny suit from Donnie Darko carefully maintains a Pan Am aircraft, replacing the kindly looking mechanic in the original ad.

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Under Brandenburg’s paintbrush, a placid waterfront becomes a scene straight out of a blockbuster film. A terrifying Kraken and a giant crab are monstrous visitors to the beachfront. Willy Wonka and his co-stars fish a floating body out of a (presumably) chocolate river, and a woman gazes out on a windy beach, not realizing she’s arrived on the Planet of the Apes.

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Ghastly figures from film and nightmares enter these paintings. These interesting paintings feature Yoda gazing on a nude madonna, a giant arachnid attacking an otherwise normal town, and death visiting a bunch of skiing children. Last but not least, one sees the tripods from War of the Worlds marching across the landscape.

One is used to seeing hubcaps lying forlornly on the side of the road, leaning against a telephone pole in the hopes of being recovered by their rightful owner. It’s comforting to know that these orphaned hub caps are able to live a second life as a beautiful piece of art. When treated properly, hubcaps can be sculpted into intricate forms that glisten with more than their former glory. Here are some of the coolest hubcap sculptures around:

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These are some wicked looking fish! With their shiny exterior, hubcaps are able to reflect the sun’s rays in a great facsimile of fish scales. With sharp edges and curved fins, these monsters of the sea are not the kind you want to hunt for dinner.

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One of the best ways I’ve seen to bring something mundane like a hubcap into something epic, is to create a mythological creature out of dozens of them. Dagger-like teeth and sharp scales cover these dragon sculptures and make them appear incredibly intricate and menacing.

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Some artists choose to maintain the hubcaps shape and simply flex their artistic muscles by painting vivid designs. It’s not your typical artistic medium, but with the right look it’s able to catch even the least fanatic car fan’s eye.

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Sculptures of animals are common, but the versatility of hubcaps as a medium are displayed best when you’re staring down a full sized mettalic boar. The hubcap is able to catch the fierce essence of these creatures, or, when necessary, the cuteness of a tamer four-legged friend.

Humans love to anthropomorphize robots, and whether we make them gigantic and towering, or small and decorative, there’s an appeal to their futuristic styling and human-esque forms. Many artists use robots as their subject matter, creating them out of metal or found objects, and creating wonderful sculptures. Here are some of the coolest robot sculptures around:

Giant Robots

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The terrifying future foretold in B movies and comic books, filled with rampaging robots crushing cars and destroying buildings, is a fun image for the entertainment industry. There’s something appealing about creating monuments so much larger than ourselves. Japan is at the forefront of giant robot building, but there are contenders around the world. Check out this video of Japanese workers putting together one such statue:

Future Tech

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Robot sculptures are often visions of future technology that it’s within our grasp to conceptualize, but not yet create. Mixed into this future tech are some wacky creations, like walking vending machines and eerily realistic robot faces.

Found Creations

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Found objects are perfect for creating homemade robots, both because the wear and tear makes them seem authentic, and that odd bits and pieces create an eclectic anthropomorphized look. For decorative purposes, you can’t go wrong welding together all the doodads and metal scrap lying around your garage.

Robot Faces

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A robots face is often created in the image of a human likeness, and artists like to explore our desire to create machine versions of ourselves through their work. The subject is often clearly machine, made out of clunky bolts and non functional decorative pieces, but they can also have incredibly detailed human features.

Robots in Culture

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The entertainment industry is chock full of robots, so it’s natural that artists would exploit this interest by creating miniature (still human-sized) versions of beloved characters. Transformer characters are quite popular, but I’m equally impressed by the alien creation that looks like it came straight out of a mech version of Ridley Scott’s popular film.

Art Exhibits

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Even art exhibits are getting their share of robotic pieces. Whether created simply for aesthetic reasons, or as a comment on our technology driven and obsessed culture, there’s no denying the appeal of some of these intricate designs.

Mechanical Animals

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One day its quite possible our furry friends will be replaced with fully automated replacements that don’t need their daily walks or visits to the vet, and that you can count on being around as long as you are. In celebration of this possible future, and also out of clear visual appeal, some artists concentrate their work on creating animals out of machine parts, found, or fabricated.

Miniature Beauty

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This fully articulated mini robot is gorgeous and fully articulated. Its creator, Mark Ho, fashioned this creation over a 6 year period at his workshop in the Netherlands.