John T Unger Artist's Portfolio

Bottle Cap Fish Mosaic No. 21

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Bottle Cap Fish Mosaic No. 21, 2007 plywood, primer, Bud Light and Izze bottle caps, recycled roofing copper 20" H x 27" W x 2.5" D

This fish is made from Bud Light and Izze bottle caps bottle caps. The plywood is primed with two layers of Kilz primer and can be hung outdoors (but the caps may fade if you hang it in direct sunlight). The fins and tale are cut from recycled roofing copper.

Bottle Cap Mosaic Fish

Bottle Cap Fish Mosaics at Vale Craft Gallery Bottle Caps, plywood, printed tin, copper or bronze, rakes, dustpans, nail, etc. 126" H x 90" W Available bottlecap fish mosaics are listed for sale HERE

Bottle caps have long had a place in the folk art tradition as a decorative element. Usually, they are deployed more as a texture, willy nilly without sorting for color. My own bottle cap mosaics were initially inspired by  Haitian ritual flags, in which detailed images are realized entirely through the use of sequins. The first bottle cap pieces I did combined  bottle caps with vitreous glass tile. Each cap is sorted by brand or color, washed, dried, punched, partially crimped and finally nailed in overlapping scales to create a feeling of depth, light and shadow. Decorative nail heads emulate the texture of seed beads often used to reinforce the sequins on flags. Even the smaller fish require hundreds of caps to complete. The most amazing thing about these fish is the way they interact with light. When you look at one or two caps from any brand, they're generally not all that impressive. But when you group hundreds of them together and let them catch the sunlight,  they truly glow.  The combination of the background color with the logo can create color tones that are vibrant and lively and wholly unexpected. What I like most about making the Bottle Cap fish mosaics is that the overlapping texture of the caps does such a good job of representing scales.These fish have been one of my big sellers… They typically sell out almost as soon as they appear. I can do custom fish in this style, by brand, color, shape, or whatever floats your boat. If you'd like to commission a fish just drop me an email from the contact page and let me know what you're thinking.

 

La Siren II: A Mosaic Mermaid Sculpture in Bottle Caps and Glass

La Siren, 2000 Vitreous glass, bottle caps, stone, copper, glass eyes, Hardibacker substrate 60" H x 36" W x 1.5" D The Lynne Ingram Collection of Folk Art click photo to view larger image.

Christy MacLear commissioned this piece for her gallery, Fleur Fine Art, because people kept asking her to sell the mermaid from her private collection and she couldn't bring herself to part with it. She gave me "total artistic freedom" to create any bottle cap mermaid I wanted to and I took that ball and ran with it. You gotta love the bottle cap dreads! I was inspired to do bottle cap mosaics by Haitian ritual flags, in which detailed images are realized entirely through the use of sequins. Each cap is sorted by brand or color, washed, dried, punched, partially crimped and finally nailed in overlapping scales to create a feeling of depth, light and shadow. Decorative nail heads emulate the texture of seed beads often used to reinforce the sequins. My bottle cap mosaics revisit the playful, funky spirit of my early found object collages. Combining the caps with Italian glass mosaic carries elements of folk art and recycling into a modern fine art context. I also did a cut metal collage this year working from the same mermaid image used for this piece. Take a look at it here.

Mermaid Mosaic Sculpture in Bottle Caps and Italian Glass

La Siren, 2000 bottle caps, vitreous glass, carved wood, enamel paint, copper, glass eyes 46" H x 46" W x 2" D Private Collection
With her Italian glass top and bottle cap tail, LaSiren reflects not just light but a sense of humor and playfulness. The image is based on the La Siren card from the Mexican Loteria game. This was my first mosaic with bottle caps— I was inspired by Haitian ritual flags, in which detailed images are realized entirely through the use of sequins. Each cap is sorted by brand or color, washed, dried, punched, partially crimped and finally nailed in overlapping scales to create a feeling of depth, light and shadow. Decorative nail heads emulate the texture of seed beads often used to reinforce the sequins. My bottle cap mosaics revisit the playful, funky spirit of my early found object collages. Combining the caps with Italian glass mosaic carries elements of folk art and recycling into a modern fine art context. click thumbnail to view larger image.

Atlas Mosaic in Glass and Bottle Caps

Atlas Bottle Cap Sculpture, 2003 Vitreous glass tile, bottle caps, copper, Hardibacker substrate over plywood. 60" H x 36" W x 1.5" D Collection: Cleveland Clinic Foundation

What I love most about this piece is the variety of interpretations I've heard— from holding up the weight of the worlds garbage, to being crushed by alcoholism, to a desire to drink in the entire world. They all work. I love this image and recently did a life-size steel collage working from the same source. Check it out (and learn more about the Loteria game the image is based on) here.

Little Red Riding Hood Narrative Sculpture

Little Red Riding Hood Narrative Sculpture, 2006 Recycled steel, 8.75" H x 20.25" W x 10" D Private Collection Collaboration with Mya Smith
Little Red Riding Hood is a narrative sculpture that my daughter Mya and I collaborated on. The drawing is hers, the cutting and welding I did. I love the way that she used the tree and the headboard to separate the story into three panels with three scenes. This one was almost the end of the process, because I made her re-draw the woodcutter about 12 times to get more of a dynamic swing to his axe… she was really frustrated by that, but in the end we both felt the results were worth it.
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Sad Bunny Sculpture

Sad Bunny, 2006 Recycled steel, 17.5" H x 18" W x 6" D Private Collection Collaboration with Mya Smith
Sad Bunny is a collaboration I did with my daughter Mya, one of many sculptures we did this summer using her drawings and my welding and cutting chops. If you click on the left hand thumbnail below you'll see what I think is the coolest feature of this piece: the bunny's shadow has a totally different expression on his face… an angry, evil expression. Of course, you have to get the angle of the light just right to reproduce it, but I think it's kind of a cool hidden allegory. Most of the mean people I've met in life were hurt themselves at some point (I mean, true enough to be trite, right?). But having the sad bunny's shadow take on an evil persona is awesome. I should really build a lightbox around it that forces the shadow to the correct angle, but I like the piece as it stands. The steel is recycled plate from the scrapyard, and the plants are bits left over from cutting out the flames on the Firebird Grill.
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The 3 Little Pigs: A Story in Steel

3 Little Pigs Story in Steel, 2006 Recycled steel, 14" H x 26" W x 6" D Collaboration with Mya Smith Private Collection
My daughter Mya is interested in making comics and she's pretty amazing at it…draws and writes very well. So when she came out this summer, I thought it would be cool to collaborate on some narrative steel sculptures together. She picked the stories, and decided how to lay out the image so that it would carry a narrative without words. I did the cutting and welding and offered a wee bit of editorial assistance in the few places where I thought the image or flow of the story could be stronger. Even though we worked pretty closely together on these, I think Mya could have done them alone if she wasn't a little bit afraid of the sparks in the shop. The house is made from an old refrigerator drawer and the rest is recycled steel plate. The wind from the wolf's mouth is copper plated welding rod. The plants are scrap left over from cutting out the flames on the Firebird Grill. This piece sold to Checkered House Gallery the minute Tess saw it.
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Recycled Metal Critters made from Cars

Fire-Breathing Dogzilla, 2006 Recycled steelfrom antique cars, rivets, bottle cap. 26" H x 33" W Private collection
I've always been a sucker for fire breathing acts, and somehow, it just seemed like Dogzilla needed get in on some of that action. But then, I'm also the guy who makes his cat stand and walk on two legs to get her treats and, yeah, the guy that taught his daughter fire breathing last summer. More circus flavored art is in the works, I think. I really like the way this one came out. The work below are various examples of small wall hanging sculpture in recycled steel. I photographed them with pennies to give a sense of scale. click thumbnail to view larger image.
Little Mermaid 20" H x 24" W Custom Order Item
Blue Striped Bee 13.5" H x 17" W Custom Order Item
Dogs Chase Tails 9.5" H x 11" W Custom Order Item
Funky Alien 15.5" H x 10" W Custom Order Item
One Big Eye 15" H x 9" W Custom Order Item
Big Fish 9" H x 30.5" W Custom Order Item
Big Fish 24" H x 27" W Custom Order Item
Little Fish 10" H x 16" W Custom Order Item
Dogzilla 24" H x 28" W Custom Order Item
Alarmist Hedgehog 6.5" H x 13" W Custom Order Item
Happy Little Creature 7" H x 16" W Custom Order Item
Happy, Funky Bird 12.5" H x 9" W Custom Order Item
Seahorse dimensions unknown Custom Order Item
Mad Cat dimensions unknown Custom Order Item

Big Metal Fish Sign

Aluminum + Copper Fish Sign, 2005 Recycled Aluminum, copper and plywood. 51" H x 96" W x 1" D

This was originally going to be a sign for the studio…  I got this far with it and decided that I liked it better as art. I made it before I had a plasma cutter, so the whole thing was done with shears and a jigsaw. I especially like the way that the copper fin near the gills came out all ripply and dimensional. I had intended it to lay flatter, but the copper got all bent up while I was cutting it and actually looked much better that way. It's pretty common that the best features of a piece will be the mistakes… I could certainly have flattened it out the way I had intended it to be, but so often what makes art be art is seeing the benefit of an error before you correct and having the sense to leave it in.