Cindy Sherman, Diane Arbus and More Get Recreated in Play-Doh

Some of the best ideas in the world start out as pub dares. London artist Eleanor Macnair’s internet-walloping Photographs Rendered in Play-Doh project recreates iconic works by the likes of Diane Arbus, August Sander, Cindy Sherman, and Jeff Wall in bright pastes with a cheeky, witty, technically masterful attention to detail.

Macnair considers each image afresh and with meticulous attention so that she can reduce it to simple enough components to make the Play-Doh incarnation feasible. Throughout the process she’s very aware of the slowed-down, patiently analog nature of what she does—that is, until she recommits the picture to digital photographs, unleashing them online, and dismantling her clay tableaux.