Inhabitat’s Top Eco Art Picks from Art Basel Week in Miami

The art world’s biggest week has just come to a close. <a href="http://www.artbaselmiamibeach.com/">Art Basel Miami </a>and the satellite art fairs draw galleries, artists, and collectors from all over the world for one week in early December, to showcase the latest artworks, installations, and parties in sunny Miami. Inhabitat was on hand to check out the fairs, and round up some of our favorite pieces by artists who use found objects and <a href="http://inhabitat.com/nyc/purgatory-pie-press-limited-edition-2012-datebooks-made-completely-from-upcycled-materials/" target="_blank">recycled materials</a>. <br>Buffalo-based <a href="http://www.jasondaquino.com/" target="_blank">Jason D’Aquino</a>’s tiny pencil drawings on vintage matchbook covers sold out from The Shop’s booth at <a href="http://www.scope-art.com" target="_blank">Scope Art Fair</a>. The miniaturist creates finely detailed drawings on found objects such as matchbooks, antique ledgers, calendars and leaflets. D’Aquino often reminds his viewers of the past life of the found materials he uses by fuses elements from the original pieces with his drawings.

From afar, <a href="http://www.sarahfrost.info/" target="_blank">Sarah Frost</a>’s two massive pieces, “Error Correct” and “Sign Off” appear to be textured topographies of beige and black dots. But get a little closer, and you’ll find the all too familiar <a href="http://inhabitat.com/recycled-electronics-transformed-into-energetic-gym-posters-by-murilo-melo/" target="_blank">recycled computer keys </a>from the clunky computers of yesteryear. It wasn’t long ago that computer keys weren’t the sleek and aerodynamically designed equipment that they are today.

Frost collects the obsolete keys and arranges them in gradating beiges, whites and tans, infuses in specks of black. The resulting pieces look like a star cluster, while also putting the massive amounts of unusable computer keys to good use.

Hanging high on a wall, <a href="http://michellematson.tv/" target="_blank">Michelle Matson</a>’s “Sleepwalker” drips with fleshy gore. The curls and furls of the skinless face is actually made <a href="http://inhabitat.com/artist-linus-huis-quirky-paper-boobs-paper-tinmen-and-paper-elephants-are-all-wearable/" target="_blank">entirely from paper</a>, which is cut and rolled to create a bugged-eyed head, with spinal cord hanging- fit for any horror movie.

<a href="http://mattcusick.com/" target="_blank">Matthew Cusik</a>’s beautiful “Blue Horse” gallops across a colorful terrain from swirls of purple into a field of yellow.

Made from tiny pieces of old maps, Cusik’s horse is cut from oceans and seas that spill across the picture plane.

<a href="http://briandettmer.com/" target="_blank">Brian Dettmer</a>, already an Inhabitat favorite, showed new work at PULSE Art Fair. Using old books, <a href="http://inhabitat.com/artist-brian-dettmer-carves-old-books-into-intricate-narrative-sculptures/" target="_blank">Dettmer carves away at the pages</a> to make innovative sculptures. By cutting certain pages and text away, he juxtaposes the books content together, creating one harmonizing piece. His vintage medical journal sculpture was a favorite at the art fair.

London based <a href="http://www.sarahbridgland.com" target="_blank">Sarah Bridgland</a> obsessively collects old greeting cards, letterpress and stationary. She then creates fragile sculptures by snipping different elements from the yellowed papers, toothpicks and glue.

Crayon stumps are transformed and fused together in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barton_Lidice_Beneš" target="_blank">Barton Lidice Benes</a>’ “Untitled.” Bonded together by applying heat to melt them, a <a href="http://inhabitat.com/diem-chau-sculpts-diminutive-figures-on-crayola-crayon-tips/" target="_blank">myriad of crayons</a> encircle a colorful world map, made from melted wax remnants.

<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabian_Marcaccio" target="_blank">Fabian Marcaccio</a>’s “Throwing Up Girl” is a mass of <a href="http://inhabitat.com/nyc/ny-exhibit-features-sheila-gallaghers-beautiful-recycled-art-created-from-found-familial-objects/" target="_blank">melted colors</a> on a grid of repurposed hand woven rope. The rope, fashioned together in a grid, makes up the canvas, while splotches of left over paint are gooed together to form a figure in an uncompromising position.

We’ve covered artists who use <a href="http://inhabitat.com/wim-delvoyes-creepy-stained-glass-windows-are-made-from-recycled-x-rays/" target="_blank">old x-ray film</a> in the past, but haven’t seen it used quite this way. Artist <a href="http://matthewcoxartist.com/about" target="_blank">Matthew Cox</a> takes the x-rays as a base, then hand stitches colorful textures directly onto them, imagining the flesh of the subjects of the initial x-rays, down to hairstyle and eye color. <br> The fairs during Art week in Miami are always inspiring, and we were happy to see so many artists using sustainable materials this year!