Artist Red Hong Yi’s incredible creations made with unlikely materials are exploding in popularity.
Red is back with a new piece celebrating her home country of Malaysia and its culture. She created a large portrait of a “teh tarik man,” or a tea seller. Teh tarik means “pulled tea” in Malay, and it’s a common drink found in coffeeshops across the country. It sounds delicious–a sweet, frothy, milky tea beverage. In classic Red fashion, she created her portrait using nothing but teabags.
There are 10 different shades used in the entire portrait.
Red used some 20,000 teabags to create the project.
Arranging the teabags
The teabags were individually stapled to wire grids in a precise order to create the image.
Setting up the wire panels
The wire grids were then put in order and hung from a wooden frame.
The final touches
Even more teabags make up the form of canisters and a shaved ice machine in the foreground, just like you would see at a coffeeshop in Malaysia.
Red created the piece in Melbourne, Australia, and it was then transported to Davos, Switzerland, where it’s on display at the World Economic Forum. Red sees the piece as a way to help share a piece of her culture with the world.
For more of Red’s work, be sure to visit her official website, as well as her Facebook and Instagram pages. You can also get a behind-the-scenes look at her work in motion on her YouTube channel.
(via Designboom, ViralNova)