Japanese artist Haroshi makes upcycled skateboard art from salvaged skateboard decks. His beautiful 3 dimensional skateboard sculptures are created from layers of stacked skateboards.

Haroshi is a self taught artist and experienced jewelry craftsman. As a passionate skateboarder, Haroshi began collecting broken pieces of skateboard parts as he saw them. With his intimate knowledge of skateboards he began arranging matching decks on top of one another and then cutting them into wooden mosaics. The style of skateboard art is now distinctly Haroshi’s. The mosaics are assembled in such a way as to best showcase the exposed layers. The skateboard decks are then hand carved and shaved into the desired shape and finally polished to perfection.

Interestingly the method that Haroshi uses is similar to the way traditional Japanese Buddahs are put together. The wooden mosaic technique allowed the Buddahs to be built using less materials for minimized weight. Haroshi also places a broken metal skateboard part from failed big attempts inside each of his sculptures. He believes this gives his art a soul, which is a reflection again of his Japanese heritage and culture.

Last year Haroshi collaborated with skate brand HUF and skateboard distributor DLX. DLX supplied Haroshi with skateboards ridden and wrecked by the DLX riders. Haroshi then transformed these decks into one-of-a-kind sculptures representative of the riders who used them.

See the HUF x DLX x Haroshi skateboard art collaboration:

Source: Haroshi

We can’t wait to see what Haroshi does in 2013!