Dutch artist Diet Wiegman has spent the last 50 years carefully arranging pieces of trash and scrap metal to create incredibly beautiful and detailed shadow sculptures.

Looking at Diet Wiegman’s piles of junk you’re left wondering why on Earth would anyone think of them as art. There’s really nothing special about them, just a combination of scrap metal and various discarded objects that always seems to represent the same thing – chaos. But as soon as someone turns on the little projector that always accompanies his works, the real masterpiece magically appears in the background. After realizing the shadows cast by Wiegman’s trash puppets are the real artworks, viewers are puzzled by another question – how does he do it? That’s something only the artist can answer, but it’s obvious he spends a great deal of time patiently arranging every little part of his sculptures, making sure they cast the right shadow when light shines from a specific angle.

Diet Wiegman’s shadow art was covered by Dutch filmmaker Mike Redman in his documentary, Anagram. Not a single word is spoken throughout the film, but the artist’s creation do a great job of speaking for themselves, and prove they really need no explanation. Talking about the artist, Redman said: “Diet Wiegman’s work always fascinated me. Through his art, he invites the viewer to look at so-called ordinary objects and situations in a different way, which makes them unique. For example, he constructed a crate with rubbish in it, which, when lit in a special way, resulted in producing a perfect shadow of the ‘David’ by Michelangelo on the wall. He received international recognition for this installation which has been copied by others throughout the years.”

Wiegman is not the only artist who specializes in creating elaborate light sculptures, but he has been doing it for a lot longer and is considered one of the pioneers of this fascinating technique.

via The Verge

Photos © Diet Wiegman