toy on wood

London-born and U.K. and U.S.-trained visual artist Robert Bradford makes use of discarded plastic items, (mainly toys but also other colorful plastic bits, such as pegs, combs and buttons) to construct large sculptures. Basically he recycles toys and creates new ones! Pretty original, I would say ;)

Like many artists, he also had another career on the side. Interestingly enough, his was that of a psychotherapist.

picture source

In 2002, he started to consider the possibilities that his children’s forgotten toys could have as part of something bigger. Bradford says he likes the idea that the plastic pieces have a history, some unknown past, and that they also pass on a "cultural" history as each of the pieces represents a point in time. Recycling is not his primary concern, but each sculpture certainly keeps quite a few pieces from becoming landfill. Some of the sculptures contain pieces from up to 3,000 toys and sell for £12,000 (US$19,000).