US based toy inventor Steve Casino, 48, has spent almost two years turning peanut shells into these tiny figures. He has made almost 100 of the tiny four-inch statuettes to date- including well-known stars like Elton John and Johnny Depp. The intricate designs can often take up to 20 hours to create. Steve has even turned his unusual passion into a business, selling privately commissioned peanut statuettes as gifts and wedding cake toppers. (Photo by Steve Casino)

Russian opposition leader, Alexei Navalny (C), reacts as the court delivers the verdict in his trial, in the city of Kirov, Russia, 18 July 2013. Alexei Navalny was sentenced to five years in jail for theft on Thursday, an unexpectedly tough punishment which supporters said proved President Vladimir Putin was a dictator ruling by repression. (Photo by Valentina Svistunova/EPA)

Karl Bang's paintings are unique because he combines totally different styles of painting within the same format. It is very difficult to design a balanced composition with realistic elements that are juxtaposed with flat colors and patterns. The faces of his subjects are painted realistically in the Western tradition with subtle gradations of color; while, his figures and costumes vignette into abstracted shapes, lines, flat colors and patterns that reflect Karl's background in China. It is as though there are different visual languages being spoken within his paintings.

Korean artist Seung Mo Park continues to amaze with his astonishingly crafted figurative sculptures made with tightly wrapped layers of aluminum wire based on fiberglass forms. The works shown here are part of the Brooklyn-based artist’s Human series where he recreates the delicate wrinkles and folds of clothing as well as the sinuous musculature of the human body in metallic layers remeniscent of tree rings. He’s also sculpted bicycles, musical insturments and other forms as part of his Object series.

Mirko Hanák was born in 1921 in Prague, Czech Republic and worked as a painter, graphic designer and illustrator. His specialties were animals and human figures that were full of life and fun. He also had a firm grasp on composition as his paintings were so well balanced despite his casual fluid line. He was working on “Charlotte's Web” the movie when he tragically died at the height of his career from leukemia in 1971.

From a height of three meters, porcelain figurines are dropped on the ground, and the sound they make when they hit trips the shutter release. The result: razor-sharp images of disturbing beauty—temporary sculptures made visible to the human eye by high-speed photography technology. The porcelain statuette bursting into pieces isn't what really captures the attention; the fascination lies in the genesis of a dynamic figure that replaces the static pose. In contrast to the inertness of the intact kitsch figurines Klimas started out with, the photographs of their destruction possess a powerfully narrative character.