Canadian novelist and artist Douglas Coupland organised a colorful, albeit sticky, art project in May this year – he invited people to stick chewed up wads of gum on a seven-foot fiberglass statue of his own head.

Located on Howe Street outside Vancouver Art Gallery, the aptly named ‘Gumhead’ statue was a part of Coupland’s ‘everywhere is anywhere and anything is everything’ exhibition. By the time it was taken down on September 1, the statue was covered in gum to the last inch. And it had all melted thanks to the summer heat, resulting in a sweet sticky mess that attracted wasps and bees.

Coupland called it a total success, describing Gumhead as ‘ugly-beautiful’. “At first the added gum looked like jewels against the black,” he said. “And then the Excel chewing gum van parked beside it during the Jazz Festival and took the whole head to the next level. And then we had a heat wave and the gum started to weep. And now it has a 24-hours cloud of bees and wasps around it. It’s a dream.”

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Slovak artist David Havetta has created a collection of unique sculptures from thousands of nicotine gum pieces he chewed himself, while trying to give up smoking.

The 65-year-old artist says he started smoking as a young boy, but decided to quit about 25 years ago, so he searched for alternatives to keep him busy and away from cigarettes. At one point he discovered nicotine gum, but had no idea it will eventually become the main medium of his unique art. During work, David started sticking the chewed up pieces of gum on a pen holder he had in his office until he formed one big lump. When he pressed his finger on it he noticed it was good, malleable material, so he decided to try and sculpt it, out of boredom.

Havetta’s first chewing gum artwork was the head of a woman, and he liked working with the material so much that he spent the next few months creating a body for it, as well. It took a lot of time and a total of 500 pieces of nicotine gum, but for the artist it was all worth it. Just so you realize how long it takes to make one of his nicotine gum sculptures, you should know David has only created a few dozens of them in the last twenty years. They include a horse, flowers and even an old table clock modeled after The Toilet of Venus by Diego Velasquez. They are all made of hundreds, sometimes thousands of pieces of gum.

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Jason Kronenwald is an extraordinary artist who creates incredible celebrity portraits out of chewed pieces of bubblegum.

“Gum Blondes” is a series of portraits of famous blondes, from Britney Spears to Madonna and even Hillary Clinton. Although I’m pretty sure he isn’t the first artist to do portraits of these stars, he is the first one to do it using only chewing gum. Jason Kronenwald executed his first chewing gum artwork in 1996, and over the years improved his technique to the point where you couldn’t guess the only medium is colored bubblegum. He recently opened a new exhibition of portraits, entitled “A Fresh Pack of Gum Blondes.”

While I’ll admit it’s hard to believe, Jason adds no dye to his chewing gum portraits. Colors and tones are obtained by simply chewing a variety of colored gum, regardless of their brand. He even has a team of chewers, so he doesn’t put any gum in his mouth, unless he absolutely has to. Each portrait is created on a plywood surface, which is then sealed with an epoxy resin that protects and preserves it for long periods of time.

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