Wine Cork Portraits by Scott Gundersen
Noteworthy, Michigan based illustrator and artist Scott Gundersen created this portrait from thousands of used and recycled corks. Starting with a large photograph, he then transfers it to a drawing. Next, Gundersen pins each cork to the canvas, creating a correlation between the hues of the wine-stained corks and the value of light or shadow in the portrait. Meanwhile, his latest work, Trisha, took 3,621 corks to complete. However, other works have required over 9,000. Scott Gundersen lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan with his wife Jeanne and their two daughters, Kaia and Shae.

The origin of wine cork portraits of Michigan based illustrator and artist Scott Gundersen can be traced back to his travels through the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2007. “He loved how so many of Congolese people wasted nothing– every item, whether an old water bottle, broken shoelace or the bark from the Banana tree, was creatively re-purposed. Compelled by the resourcefulness and ingenuity of the people he met in each village and market, Gundersen returned home dedicated to infuse his own art with these same concepts. Drawing on this idea of recycling, along with his love for mosaics and his penchant for drinking red wine, Gundersen collected corks for two years before making his first recycled wine cork portrait in 2009. In the years since, Gundersen has used over 200,000 corks in mosaics created for private collectors and corporate clients on four continents”.

Wine Cork Portraits by Scott Gundersen

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