“David #2”
Using the natural landscape as his canvas, British artist Justin Bateman creates impermanent artwork from found pebbles and stones. The artist now lives in Chiang Mai, Thailand, where he leaves detailed pebble portraits on beaches, in forests, by railways, and up mountains. Each natural-colored stone acts as an individual paint stroke or mark that’s integral to the overall image. On Instagram Bateman plainly says, “Pebbles are my Pixels.”
From famous faces to iconic works of art, each piece captures the character of its subject in a restricted color palette of stoney hues. By using found pebbles, Bateman never truly plans his portraits in advance. Rather, he lets the stones themselves dictate the composition of the artwork. “Art should always be unrestricted, yet in its limits I find freedom,” he says. “The beauty of this process is that I don’t have any…
