Look Closely: These Paintings are Made Using Unique Materials

Some painters use acrylics, others prefer watercolors. Bob Landström’s tools of choice? Volcanic rocks. Using crushed volcanic rocks as paint, he produces unique artwork marked by a distinctive style.

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Detail. Volcanic rock on canvas

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His paintings also stand out for their subject matter, rich with allusions and symbols—an assembled constellation of recurring imagery that includes animals, letter fragments, diagrams, and glyphs. These elements in combination form their own pictorial universe.

A self-proclaimed “student of metaphysics,” Landström explains he’s interested in glyphs and symbols from ancient cultures, exploring how these marks have traveled through civilizations, geographies and time. Add to this his chosen materials and you get a truly unique form of artwork which Landström compares to alchemy.

“I think every person is a kind of transceiver to varying degrees, depending on where they’re from and how they live,” says Landström on his website, “which is reflected in the fact—among other ways—that certain images or symbols are universal and occur in vastly different civilizations all over the world and throughout history.”

Enter his mystifying worlds in the gallery below.

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Liber Primus. Pigmented volcanic rock on canvas.

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Last week for Conjuring Secrets @alanaveryartcompany

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Volcanic rock on canvas

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