Fleeting Masterpieces Tattooed on Banana Skin

Phil Hansen’s inspirational moment for his book came when his wife handed him a banana to eat and seeing that it wasn’t one of his choice snacks, he started drawing on it with a pencil instead. Moments later, he saw that the natural browning that took place on the banana skin could actually turn up a good image and an idea was born. The multimedia artist uses a process similar to pointillism where small dots are used to create an image and in this case, he uses a pushpin to poke dots into the banana skin. The result is a masterpiece that slowly reveals itself. Though the process is simple, the images he replicates are not and they range from Michelangelo’s “David” to Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus.” His book “Tattoo a Banana: And Other Ways to Turn Anything and Everything Into Art” challenges people to approach life creatively.