From Vincent ‘Le-Go’ to ‘Girl with the Lego Earring’, a Pretoria artist is bringing old and new masterpieces to light, one block at a time.
Pretoria, South Africa (17 April, 2023) — If you were to ask most adult artists what their favourite medium is, lego blocks usually wouldn’t be part of the conversation. However, one Pretoria-based artist thinking ‘out of the blocks’ might disagree with you.
Doing away with any instructions and allowing her creativity to square up, Michelle Krüger made Lego into a true art form.
Her work is as playful as it is technical and serves as a testament to the talent of South Africa’s budding artists creating their own yellow brick roads.
Michelle always honed an artistic way of thinking but also had the builder’s touch. That’s why her studies took her from performance art technology to a civil engineering diploma, per The Insider SA.
When she battled to find work in these industries, a Lego set gift box, unsuspecting as it was, would change things forever. A few building blocks down, a new passion burning, and she was on her way to becoming the South African artist inspiring the unconventional that she is today.
Her ‘pixelated’ portraits range from pop culture icons (like ‘Marilyn Monlego’) famous scientists (Einstein), and masterpieces reimagined like ‘Girl with the Lego Earring’. She’s even brought artists themselves into the frame, like her Frida Kahlo and Vincent Le-Go’ pieces.
However, hers is one of the rare talents where the subject takes the backseat. Everything is awesome.
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As for how long these pieces can take, she shared per IOL, that hours upon hours are poured into her work, with large pieces taking up to sixty of them.
Still, Michelle’s masterpieces are a reminder that sometimes the most beautiful things come from daring to go against the grain and reimagine the box at hand.
Her work also recently got a shoutout from Lego, who celebrated her portraits on World Art Day.
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You can catch Michelle’s work via her Instagram, or via the Ink Box Gallery and The Gallery Lifestyle.
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