Toronto-based artist Emanuel Pavao creates unique work out art using a medium very few have been successful with —duct tapes. Pavao uses duct tape, colored electrical tape and masking tape on canvas-board to create urban scenes, which he then seals with a clear epoxy resin.

"My interest in Tape Art was due in part to inspiration and the other part to frustration,” he says. “I was inspired by the realist works of such artists as Chuck Close, Richard Estes, Alex Colville and Eric Zener but I was also not satisfied working with the mediums of oil, acrylic and watercolours. The work that a few installation artists were doing with tape attracted me to it and I felt that there could be more to this medium as a fine art.”

In 2012, the company that he was working for as a designer underwent a massive downsizing, causing him to lose his job. Instead of despair, Pavao welcomed the change.

“I decided to take an unquestionably utilitarian object (duct tape) and create something beautiful from it (or try to) in order to help reveal its potential to others. Toronto businesses and street scenes became my muse and tape my medium. I deduced that if there could be that much potential in an object that had a specific task (duct tape: tape for duct work) then how much more potential was there for and within people?”

Pavao begins with a photograph that he takes and creates the layout of the design. He then applies tape and scratches them off with a blade, wherever required, to add detail. Once the artwork is complete, a coat or two of clear resin is applied to seal his work.

via Lustik