Orlando artist uses nearly 10,000 peanuts for this portrait.
ORLANDO, Fla. (April 16, 2015) – She won an academy award for Silver Linings Playbook and wowed crowds in The Hunger Games, but Ripley’s Believe It or Not! will soon be featuring actress Jennifer Lawrence in a way she’s never been seen before – in peanuts.
Ripley’s commissioned Orlando artist Mateo Blanco to create a celebrity portrait, but with two conditions: it had to be a person from Kentucky and the media had to be something associated with baseball. Why? The artwork will be used for an upcoming baseball-themed show at the Louisville Slugger Museum (located in Louisville) next year.
Blanco chose the combo of Lawrence (born and raised in Louisville) and peanuts – 9,658 Planters Cocktail Peanuts to be exact.
The artist spent 400 hours on the portrait, painstakingly drilling holes to create the outline and then gluing peanuts into the wooden backing board – nut by nut.
Blanco soon discovered the perils of working in peanuts rather than paint; you can’t eat paint.
“I love peanuts, so as soon as I began I ate like three or four peanuts for everyone peanut I put in the portrait,” said Blanco.
The finished portrait measures a whopping 78 inches by 55 inches.
This is the tenth Mateo Blanco creation in the Ripley’s collection. He’s a master of strange media, having used sugar, glow-in-the-dark pasta, balls of wool and even dog hair for his previous works.
“Mateo and his art are bigger than life,” said Edward Meyer, Ripley’s VP of Exhibits and Archives. “I truly had no idea what he could create to fill our criteria of having to be made from something associated with baseball. The end result is one of the most original pieces in our vast collection of unbelievable art.”
“We of course had to get it framed to prevent people from chewing on Jennifer’s ears,” added Meyer.
For images of the Jennifer Lawrence portrait, visit this link to download
VP, Exhibits & Archives
Ripley Entertainment Inc.
About Ripley Entertainment
Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Orlando is part of the Ripley Entertainment Inc. (www.ripleys.com) family of worldwide attractions, the global leader in location-based entertainment. More than 13 million people visit its 95-plus attractions in 10 countries each year. In addition to its 32 Believe It or Not! Odditoriums, the Orlando, Florida-based company has publishing, licensing and broadcast divisions that oversee projects including the syndicated Believe It or Not! television show, best-selling books and the popular syndicated cartoon strip, Ripley’s Believe It or Not!, that still runs daily in 42 countries. Ripley Entertainment is a Jim Pattison Company, the third-largest privately held company in Canada.