Miles Van Rensselaer using everything from glass and crystal to bronze and iron, from gold and silver to tooth and bone, from steel, copper and lead to wood, clay, feather and hair. He has been fortunate enough to work – and humbled by working – with and among talented artists from all over the world. His work is his homage to these people and their vanishing ways of life, his translation of their technique, imagery, idea of “primitive” art into modern Western materials.

Two animatronic velociraptors are on display during a technical rehearsal of “Walking with Dinosaurs The Live Experience” at the Indoor Stadium in Singapore, 29 August 2019. “Walking with Dinosaurs The Live Experience” is based on the BBC series of the same name and will run from 29 August to 08 September. (Photo by Wallace Woon/EPA/EFE/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Wakhi nomad women milk yaks in Wakhan, Afghanistan. About 12,000 villagers live at an altitude of 4,500 metres in the harsh, desolate terrain. The Wakhi people live a simple, relaxed life with their livestock. (Photo by Eric Lafforgue/Barcroft Images)

Labourers walk near trucks loaded with logs, which are trapped on a muddy road, near an unreserved forest in the village of Igbatoro, southwest Nigeria, August 28, 2014. Wood, a form of biomass, is the sole source of energy for hundreds of millions of Africans who lack access to modern sources of power, and logging, both legal and illegal, remains a lucrative business that has contributed to the rapid shrinking of Africa's rainforests and woodlands. (Photo by Akintunde Akinleye/Reuters)

At first glance, Korean artist Kyu-Hak Lee's mixed media mosaics come off as fairly straightforward recreations of iconic works of art. But upon closer inspection, there's more depth to Lee's works than expected. Using a specific technique – rolling strips of magazine and newspaper pages around small bits of wood – Lee replicates brushstrokes, patterns, and colors to create a commentary on consumerism and worth.

In this photo taken on Saturday, April 29, 2017, a candle is lit in a roadside shrine as the sun sets across a nearby lake of Pineia in the village of Souli, in the Peloponnese region of southern Greece. Made of iron sheeting, stone, wood, concrete or marble, tens of thousands of such shrines punctuate Greece’s roadside scenery, a common sight in a country that has one of the European Union’s worst road fatality rates. (Photo by Petros Giannakouris/AP Photo)

A man passes by a wall with graffiti in Beirut, Lebanon, on May 29, 2019. (Photo by Bilal Jawich/Xinhua News Agency/Alamy Live News)

Swimmer silhouetted in a waterslide in the coastal suburb of Glenelg, Adelaide, Australia on January 21, 2025. (Photo by Amer Ghazzal/Alamy Live News)