Something as mundane as packing tape, in the right hands, can be transformed into beautiful art. In this case, the ‘right hands’ belong to Ukrainian-born artist Mark Khaisman, who now lives in Philadelphia.

Mark uses nothing but packing tape and light to create his incredible artworks. He is a ‘painter of light’, as he puts it. Indeed, it is the play of light that brings out the true beauty of his ‘paintings’.

His process is simple – he sets Plexiglass sheets on a backlit panel that’s sort of like an architect’s box-light. This is the ‘canvas’ on which he uses the tape to construct images. He places strip after strip of packing tape on the glass, building up the image in layers. As he adds on the layers, less light shines through the glass, creating depth, shadow and definition in the pictures.

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Ever been frustrated by sticky packing tape getting all over the place? I’ve been there. So when I learned about this artist who uses brown packing tape to create detailed works of art, I was seriously impressed.

Artist Max Zorn creates street art consisting mainly of portraits. His only tools are rolls of packing tape and a scalpel, but the results are astounding. The translucent portraits are hung over street lamps for the final effect, with multiple shades created through layers of tape strips. What is really impressive is that Zorn essentially works with just a single colored tape, creating several shades as he goes along. The sepia-toned art pieces have an incredible detailing, and are a delight to look at.

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By applying layer upon layer of brown packaging tape on plexiglass light boxes, Mark Khaisam creates amazing paintings.

Philadelphia-based Mark Khaisam used to work on stained-glass windows, before discovering the packaging tape, and though the two art forms seem unrelated, the artist says they are just different ways of painting with light. As he uses up to ten layers of tape for the darkest spots on his paintings, Mr. Khaisam needs around three 100-meter packaging tape rolls per week, to complete his artworks.

The artist doesn’t sketch out the images first, as you might imagine, he simply works with stills from his favorite films, increases them to actual size, then starts adding pieces of packaging tape directly on the light boxes. Using different number of layers to create darker areas and shadows, and thinner pieces of tape to achieve brush strokes, Mark Khaisman manages to create detailed paintings that look amazingly loose.

The packaging tape paintings of Mark Khaisman sell for as much as $10,000.

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