A bird is cleaned at the International Bird Rescue in Fairfield, California January 20, 2015. A gooey, unknown material discovered on the eastern shores of San Francisco Bay is clinging to the feathers of birds, and more than 100 birds, mostly species of oceangoing, diving ducks, have died after their feathers were fouled by the viscous substance now undergoing testing at state labs in Sacramento. (Photo by Robert Galbraith/Reuters)

Popocatepetl volcano spews incandescent material as seen from Paso de Cortés on May 23, 2023 in Amecameca, Mexico. The second highest volcano in the country increased its activity while Mexican authorities raised the alert to yellow phase 3. Popocatepetl volcano caused the fall of ashes in different municipalities in Puebla, Estado de Mexico and Mexico City. Mexican army has spread forces as a preventive measure while the 3 levels of government are in coordination to observe the activity of the volcano and the situation in the surroundings. (Photo by Cristopher Rogel Blanquet/Getty Images)

Two brothers have built a human catapult to fly into a lake. Johannes Schrieber, 26, and his brother Daniel, 28, from Frankfurt, Germany built the wooden contraption, which can fire people five metres into the sky and 12 metres away. The brothers raised more than £700 through crowdfunding to buy the materials, with every penny well spent as nobody has died yet! (Photo by Caters News)

Soap Bubble Structures by Kym Cox. Bubbles optimise space and minimise their surface area for a given volume of air. This phenomenon makes them a useful tool in many areas of research, in particular, materials science and “packing” – how things fit together. Bubble walls drain under gravity, thin at the top, thick at the bottom, which interferes with travelling lightwaves to create bands of colour. Black spots show the wall is too thin for interference colours, indicating the bubble is about to burst. (Photo by Kym Cox/2019 Science Photographer of the Year/RPS)

“A snow roller is a rare meteorological phenomenon in which large snowballs are formed naturally as chunks of snow are blown along the ground by wind, picking up material along the way, in much the same way that the large snowballs used in snowmen are made”. – Wikipedia. Photo: Snow Roller. (Photo by The Daily Omnivore)

Istanbul-based Ali Gulec is a graphic artist with a difference. His surreal illustrations are like identikit drawings aiming to prosecute the material arts. Working on the margins of what is possible with his medium, Gulec's forms, figures, and situations are remarkable for their clarity and strength of purpose, and maintain an iconographic intensity that would make any rock band bereft of an album cover salivate with admiration.

In an extraordinary act of devotion to his art, sculptural artist Spencer Byles spent a year creating beautiful sculptures out of natural and found materials throughout the unmanaged forests of La Colle Sur Loup (where he lived with his family), Villeneuve Loubet and Mougins. He worked together with elements of his natural surroundings to create artwork that blends seamlessly with the environment.

The Azerbaijan-based artist’s mixed-media installations include pieces entitled “Looking at two cities from one point of view”, “Plastik portret” and “Crisis haha”. Alakbarov carefully positions multicolored acrylic planes, packaging materials, and other objects of assorted shapes and then projects light upon then to create shadow images of beautiful beaches, cities, people, and even words.