geekosystem

Back in August the Internet exploded with pictures of an attempt at restoring a Spanish fresco that depicted Jesus called Ecce Homo or Behold the Man. The attempted restoration was done by an 80-year-old woman named Celia Gimenez. She is now widely considered to be the worst, but it hasn't stopped her from painting, and now Celia Gimenez just sold a painting on eBay for $1,421. What are the chances she's really Banksy?

In case you hadn't noticed, we're pretty big fans of Van Gogh's Starry Night. Or rather, we're really big fans of the seemingly endless parade of homages to the painting, made on whiteboards, pumpkins, and now: Various spices and foodstuffs. This tasty looking interpretation is the creation of photographer Kelly Mccollam who crafted her work out of spices, food coloring, and potato chips. She says that Van Gogh is her favorite painter and that it only felt natural to create this piece, as well as other delicious re-imaginings of Van Gogh's work. See more spicy paintings, after the break.

Washington-based painter Tyree Callahan replaced the letter keys on a 1937 Underwood Standard typewriter with color pads and hue labels to create a functional painting typewriter, dubbed the Chromatic Typewriter. The typewriter was submitted to the 2012 West Prize competition, a yearly prize voted on by popular opinion.

Ukraine has a national school of underwater painting, a thing most of us probably didn't previously think was a thing, because how do you get paint to be paint underwater? The members of said school, the underwater artists, are all trained scuba divers, and work at depths from anywhere between 2 and 20 feet. The diver's canvases are usually covered in a waterproof adhesive coating before they are taken underwater, so at least something unique is being done to either the paint or canvases to make the process work.

With the rise of the smart phone and GPS who uses a paper map anymore, really? But, artist Ingrid Dabringer has found at lease one new use for old maps. She turns them into the backdrop for amazing portraits. Dabringer incorporates the geographical shapes of the map, the roads, waterways, and even colors into her pieces. Using acrylic paints, Dabringer draws faces and characters that she visualizes amongst the tangled web of streets and shapes. More paintings after the jump.

Fed up with "applying exactly the same shade of magnolia to people's living rooms with a paint roller," 63-year-old painter Robert Burns needed a break from the monotony of decorating in such a way that he sarcastically says a primate could learn, saw some pictures of the Vatican in Rome and thought, "I could do that," and decided to recreate the Sistine Chapel in every room of his house. It only took him eight years. You know, no big deal. The conveniently-named Mr. Burns, couldn't afford a trip to the Vatican, so he had to brush up on his Sistine Chapel through coffee table art books.

Burns' recreation has been updated with a few modern touches, such as a portrait of Jesus Christ wearing a crown of thorns that just so happens to resemble comedian Russell Brand. Burns saw the picture of Brand in a newspaper, thought Brand was the "spitting image of Christ," and added it to the recreation.

Fun, super-clever video by Matteo Negrin. (via Dude Craft | Artist's page)