Pushpin Art

They’re pushpins – but not as you know them! American artist Eric Daigh astounded the art world when he created amazing mosaic portraits from different coloured pushpins – a feat which took many hours to pull off.

Michigan-based Daigh is a process artist who starts his pushpin projects by taking a series of photographs. He then uses a computer to break the images down to a low resolution using only a few colours (black, white, red, blue and yellow). He then uses a grid map to help him stick thousands of pushpins into rows and create the image he wants.

Daigh first won acclaim in 2009 when he took third place in the Inaugural ArtPrize competition in Grand Rapids. Since then he has created a world record for artwork using pushpins – he used 109,687 pins to make an impressive piece for automaker Acura.

A standard pushpin portrait by Daigh uses 11,000- 25,000 pins.

On Daigh’s website, he states, “I enjoy very much making something digital with my hands. I enjoy making work that requires a physical proximity. I enjoy the fact that this work travels from the intangible, the binary, to the tactile, the singular.

“By invoking these mediums, I hope to generate a dialogue and sentiment that has something to do with the effort, repetition, focus, discipline, absurdity, and love that went into its making.”