Incredible Art Pieces Made From Sneakers

The understatement of the century would be to say that we like sneakers here at Complex. We are pretty fond of art, too. So naturally, we appreciate artists who are able to bring the two worlds together by creating dope sculptures out of our favorite footwear. It is definitely not an easy thing to do, so if you feel inspired, we don't recommend you grab your favorite pair and play surgeon. Leave the art to the professionals. Or, if you are really determined, go to your local thrift shop and grab a pair of whatever's cheapest, and start there. In the meantime, check out this list of Incredible Art Pieces Made From Sneakers.

RELATED: 20 Sneaker Customizers You Need to Know

Back in 2009, the arist known as Krupky hurt some feelings when he dissected a pair of black and pink Air Yeezys and built this plane out of them. The shoes lend themselves so well to the design with the glow in the dark soles as the body of the plane and the padded sockliner as the wings. The lacelock engines definitely make the entire sculpture for us. Why hasn't anyone done this more recently? Or have we just been sleeping?

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Freehand Profit is one name that those who follow sneaker culture will know. Over the past couple of years his sneaker gas masks have become famous among rappers and sneaker enthusiasts alike. Freehand Profit has constructed masks out of some of rarest sneakers available and consistently produces wearable art pieces that look better than the original shoes. The fact that he is fearless and doesn't hesitate to chop up highly sought after kicks for his art is pretty damn impressive.

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New York-based artist Dan Colen's work draws heavily from mass media and the familiar, using "low culture ephemera," including melted candy, trash, confetti, and other everyday materials. This sneaker was a part of Colen's "Blowin' in the Wind" series, a collection of painted garbage left over from Colen's "Trash" paintings in 2011.

In a quote from the "Trash" exhibition at Gagosian, the artist explained his motives for using objects like the sneaker in his paintings and mixed media pieces: "I'm interested in using the 'real world' as a material and a force within my process. I like how these materials take some control away from me, allowing for a more uncertain future and yet a more finished piece. These materials come with a history, not one I necessarily know, but a history for sure. There is an infinity in 'real world objects' that, no matter how much I try, I couldn't paint or sculpt into being."

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Canadian-born Brian Jungen is a prolific and world-renowned artist who works in found art. His works often incorporate the history and traditions of the First Nations, like these aboriginal masks made out of Air Jordans. We love that Jungen's masks are made of minimal materials yet have tons of personality as far as the facial expressions and features.

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UK Designer Max Knight received a special assignment from Intersection Magazine to come up with something new and unique, so he created The Walking Bike. The idea is simple: a bike is outfitted with eight pairs of shoes instead of a tire. Check out a 12- second clip of someone riding the bike below (spoiler: they don't get very far):

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Séamus Moran made a traditional wresting mask out of sneakers unlike the masks that we've seen from Freehand Profit, but just as cool. He uses the contours of the shoe and the panels perfectly in this design. The mask is currently entered into the Threadneedle Prize figurative and representational art contest worth £30,000. Perhaps winning would be incentive enough to produce more works like this.

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Czech-born artist Petr Motycka used over 1,400 individual sneakers to create Shoe Christ. The work stands six meters high and is modeled after the crucifixion of Jesus. The alternate title for Motycka's piece is Compulsion to Refuse Something that Has Been Used, which speaks to the idea that most people won't wear shoes that have been worn by a stranger, treating footwear like some kind of holy relic that must remain sacred and untouched. We expected 1,400 shoes to take up more space, but this statue would be amazing at any height.

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Unlike the other artists on this list, Jethro Haynes uses sneakers as the foundation of his art pieces and builds on them with other materials. The London-based artist creates shoe dioramas. Intricate little scenes are constructed inside of and on top of shoes to resemble tiny, yet complex worlds for the imaginary men and women inside. Haynes' Amorous Octopus was his first sneaker diorama. Made in collaboration with a Vans exhibit, this shoe never got to see the floor.

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Kenji Ando creates works and collectibles for major game companies and franchises like Final Fantasy, so creating a sculpture for the "White Dunk" exhibition was light work. Using a special transparent material, Ando recreated the model and incorporated it into a natural scene with some sort of miniature angle (or normal-sized angle with larger than life surroundings).

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Toy model maker Junichi Taniguchi participated in "White Dunk: Evolution of an Icon" back in 2005 and contributed this piece entitled Close Double Dunk. This may have been Taniguchi's only attempt at sneaker-related art before getting back to toy making, but it's a great piece to retire with.

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Federico Uribe is a Colombian-born, Miami-based conceptual artist who has been active since the '90s. His sculptures are whole environments with each blade of grass and flower part of an entire scene. His sneaker animals are mind-boggling and often appear made to scale with hundreds of intricately placed uppers and soles.

Like Dan Colen and others, Uribe creates art with much more than just sneakers. He uses bullets, corks, audio/visual cables, screws, dominoes, and various other common objects to create dynamic pieces of art that are beautiful in their repetition and composition as well as in their subject matter. When asked about his collaboration with Puma in 2007, Uribe said, "When I started working with shoes I could not avoid thinking where they came from and all the materials from nature that we use to comfort our lives. So as a tribute to what nature gives us all, I got the idea of reconstructing nature from it's own raw materials."

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Japanese designer Mita Shinichi created multiple sneaker sculptures exclusively out of Nike Dunks back in 2010 for a gallery show at Tokyo's GALLERY SPEAK FOR. Shinichi went beyond singular sculptures and also designed functional furniture. The artist also created wearable art sculptures and took photos of models in them while they sat on his chair sculptures. We've never seen so many beautiful white Dunks in our lives, and they look even cleaner in sculpture form.

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London-based duo Vinti Tan and Paul Andrews are clothing designers by trade but their sneaker sculptures are among the best we've ever seen. It's almost impossible to name all of the models used in their pieces, some of which are collaborations with Nike, which means the shoes were probably seeded for the project (bonus points for trying to name the models, but the pieces are so layered that you will probably miss a few). Many shoes that are considered "grails" for sneakerheads are cut into itty bitty pieces and sewn together to create these awesome pieces that we would trade our unborn children for.

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Why buy toys when you can make your own? James Visaya took his original pairs of Nike Air Flight Huarache and Asics Gel Lyte IIIs and created his own Transshoeformers. The name could use some work, but the figures are amazing and the perfect way to breathe new life into your old kicks.

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Alex Da Corte's display at Joe Sheftel Gallery dealt with consumerism and in-your-face outrageousness, which we love. It reminds us of one of our favorite pastimes: sneaker shopping. It's chaotic and organized at the same time, just like our own collections and lives.

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Bronx-based artist Seal Paul Gallegos has been deconstructing and turning sneakers into art for 15 years since the day he found a bag of knockoff Jordans in a dumpster in Chinatown. Since then he has been creating masks, sculptures, bugs, guns, and various other imagery out of kicks.

In a recent interview with Bronx Art Guide, Gallegos said that he started the shoe designs as a response to what was going on with the sneakers at the time: "The shoes kind of came from this idea of how much people spend on those shoes. Or, the 'little warriors' who have to wear those shoes... whose parents think they need them instead of paying their ConEd bill. Or instead of sending their kids to college or having food in their fridge. They always have to have the freshest kicks on their block. And, I ended up later saying to someone, while I was standing in the gallery that 'these were my weapons of mass consumption,' and I was kind of blown away that that rolled out of my mouth, and it was something that I never really thought of at all." Fifteen years later and Gallegos' work is more impressive than ever as he continues to show in exhibitions around New York.

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