We've featured some interesting art on here before, but Australia' Bridge Stehli might be the weirdest story so far. Stehli takes crushed cigarette boxes and paints band logos flawlessly onto them, alongside an animalistic representation of the band's music. He called them Smokémon, because why not? It's a really interesting concept that Stehli goes into in his interview with Noisey!
As a TL;DR kind of version, he explains what got him into it.
I was living on my friend’s couch and he was a very heavy smoker. I needed to produce some work on cardboard for a show and these Marlboro Lights packs were lying around everywhere and I started to think a lot about the warning labels and censorship and responsibility. This was when I was living in London and there are some health warnings on their packs but not nearly as many as Australia, and looking at those against the packs I collected whilst in the States which had next to no warnings.
He also talks about how he chooses the animals.
I dunno, that always changes. Sometimes it’s a really obvious choice, sometimes it’s a private joke, sometimes it’s just an aesthetic thing, sometimes I haven’t painted that particular animal before and I feel like I want to. I mean mostly the animals are kind of more about creating a mascot for something that usually wouldn’t have a mascot. In the same way that Camel used to use that… What was that guys name? Joe Camel? Or my personal favorite Willie the Kool Penguin—that’s kind of what these anthropomorphized animals are about. A cuddly mascot for something which is considered kind of sinister, something that would appeal to children.
Stehli doesn't seem to adhere to any specific genres, but he's definitely got some great metal ones floating around in his extensive online collection. Here are a few of my favorites!
