Artist and Gulf Veteran Creates Portraits of Famous Faces Using Thousands of Old Keyboard Pieces
From Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia to John Lennon and Mona Lisa, these famous faces have one thing in common. They are made from thousands of keys from recycled computer keyboards.
Gulf War veteran Doug Powell of Orlando, Florida, creates the modern masterpieces which great artists like Turner would surely have been proud of.
He said: “I have sourced close to a half million computer keys into my mosaic portraits. Most of my portraits contain 6,000-10,000 computer keys.”
Doug first developed a passion for recycling as a teenager when he collected old newspapers and bottles for the local Scouts.
After 10 years in the US Navy, he started putting the art into spare parts in 2010. Since then he has sold scores of works, with price tags of around £20,000 ($27,000). They have included a 10ft-tall piano mosaic and one of the Hubble space telescope that measures 60ft square.
Others icons he has portrayed include Salvador Dali, Audrey Hepburn, Apple tycoon Steve Jobs and Marilyn Monroe.
