New York artist Henry Hargreaves makes portraits of modern icons using dozens of pieces of toast. You have to admit, burnt toast never looked this good.

With his series of toast portraits entitled “Toasted”, Henry Hargreaves joins the ranks of established artists who chose toast as their art medium, the likes of Maurice “Toastman” Bennett, Laura Hadland or Adam Sheldon. Using dozens of pieces of toast, some barely toasted, other burned to a crisp, Hargreaves managed to create a series of mosaic portraits that includes The Beatles, Che Guevarra, Jim Morrison and Marylin Monroe. I gotta say they all look good good enough to eat.

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Maurice Bennet, also known as “The Toastman“, has created a large scale portrait of Marilyn Monroe using thousands of colorful pieces of toast.

Known for his original toast art, the New Zealand-based artist was commissioned by a Shanghai shopping mall to create one of his signature works. With the help of young local artists, The Toastman created a colorful portrait of Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe, out of 6,000 pieces of toast. The original piece has already been completed and will be placed on display at the Xintiandi Mall, in Shanghai, on Monday, July 25.

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English toast artist Laura Hadland used 10,080 pieces of toasted and regular bread to create an impressive mosaic of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.

Remember that awesome giant toast portrait we featured a few months ago? Well, that was also Laura’s doing, and now she’s back with even more toast goodness. This time she traveled to Matera, Italy’s “City of Bread”, to create an edible replica of the famous Mona Lisa. It took a big effort on Laura’s part, because the slices of bread were larger than the 10 x 10 squares she had already printed as a blueprint, so every piece of bread had to be trimmed to size. Which wasn’t easy, since the more toasted the bread is, the more likely it is to shatter when trimmed. But her experience with toast mosaics paid off and she managed to create a delicious looking Gioconda.

The mosaic measured 9 meters by 11.2 meters and numbered 10,080 slices of bread, a combination of plain white bread, toast, and slices covered with dark and milk chocolate. It was made entirely from edible materials, in deference to the hunger caused by natural disasters in Japan. The toast Mona Lisa was made for a Japanese television show featuring the actresses who form MoriSanchu, whatever that is.

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Trying to come up with an original birthday present for mother in law, a museum curator managed to set a new world record for the world’s largest toast mosaic.

27-year-old Laura Hadland, a museum curator from Leicester, wanted to offer her mother-in-law a really special gift, on her 50th birthday. Together with 40 friends and volunteers, Laura spent six hours toasting thousands of bread slices and arranging them into an amazing mosaic of the woman she calls not only a great mother-in-law, but also one of her best friends.

The world’s largest toast mosaic was created using a set of ten bread toasters and measures 32 feet 8 inches by 42 feet 3 inches. Its made up of 9,852 slices toasted to varying degrees of brown, which add up to about 600 bread loafs.

As a museum curator, Laura Hadland has had plenty of experience working with ancient Roman mosaics, and admits she was thrilled to create a modern mosaic out of her favorite food. Her mother-in-law says it’s a bit weird seeing her face recreated from pieces of toast, but at the same time very flattering.

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Nathan Wyburn, a young Welsh artist from Ebbw Vale, has created a series of celebrity portraits with jam and marmite, on a canvas made of toast.

The first time you lay eyes on Nathan Wyburn’s artworks, you don’t know whether to frame it or eat it. But, even though his art mediums might seem a bit weird, 20-year-old Nathan is an established artist, with a worldwide online following. Uploaded videos of his work have been watched by millions of people and made Nathan Wyburn somewhat of an Internet celebrity.

Some of Nathan’s past projects include a portrait of Simon Cowell made of 30 pieces of Marmite-covered toast, and Lady Gaga in sugar. His latest works were commissioned  by a new Costa Coffee shop, in Towcester, and feature the portraits of international celebrities David Beckham and Cheryl Cole, painted on toast.

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For the last 10 years, Maurice “Toastman” Bennet has been making incredible masterpieces from pieces of toast. His last work of art is a giant crunchy replica of Mona Lisa.

Last week, the Toastman spent most of his time at the K-11 shopping mall, in Hong Kong, working on his newest work for the upcoming Food Art Festival. His entire studio smelled of gas and burnt toast, but the final result was fully worth it. He managed to create a beautiful replica of Mona Lisa eating a pink ice cream, out of around 6,000 individual pieces of toast. And he did it all by using a blow torch to create patterns and different color tones.

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New-Zealander Maurice Bennet, also known  as “Toastman”, creates incredible portraits and abstract works of art using toast.

Born in Paeroa, in the late 1950s, Maurice Bennett has always been fascinated by the art world, and as a young man, he traveled the world visiting museums and art galleries learning more and more about traditional and offbeat art. Upon his return to New-Zealand, the starving artist had to find a job, rather than focus on his art career, so he began weighing potatoes at a local market. Before he knew it, he and his wife were owning their own supermarket, and he was able to express himself through art.

Maurice’s first artistic experiences had him painting and sculpting, but it wasn’t until he discovered toast as an art medium, that he became a truly fulfilled artist. Throughout the years he created portraits of famous figures such as New Zealand prime minister John Key, rugby legend Jonah Lomu, the Mona Lisa, Elvis Presley , all of which earned him the praise of art critics.

Some of his more recent creations include a portrait of American president Barrack Obama, and some abstract works inspired by Maori carvings and Pacific patterns. he even made a portrait of rap star Eminem out thousands of M&Ms.

After selling his successful business, in late 2009, Toastman Maurice Bennett is now free to dedicate himself to his family, and his offbeat art.

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British artist Adam Sheldon recreated Jesus’ crucifixion using some pieces of burned toast and a scraping knife. His work of art is now on display at the Anglican Church of St Peter, in Lincs.

33-year-old Adam Sheldon took on the project at the request of his mother, who worships at St. Peter’s Church. Before starting work on his 1.8 ,meters long, 1.1 meters wide masterpiece, Adam scraped the Last Supper on three pieces of toast, to perfect his technique.

He used a regular toaster to burn the pieces of bread, then dried and flattened them so they would fit in a giant frame. Using a scraping knife he managed to create the lighter parts of the artwork, and darkened the background with a blowtorch.

At first, the reverend and parishioners were stunned by Sheldon’s creation, because they didn’t expect something this…original, but now they’re thrilled to have such art on the walls of their church. The artwork was so skillfully scraped, some believed it was actually painted on tiles, before realizing the tiles are really pieces of bread.

The toast crucifixion of Jesus will be on display at the Anglican Church of Saint Peter until January 30, if the rats don’t get to it by then.

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