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Liquid aluminum poured into anthills creates stunning sculptures

Liquid aluminum poured into anthills creates stunning sculptures

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Anthill Art fire ant sculpture
Anthill Art fire ant sculpture

Molten aluminum has many uses, but the strangest might be Anthill Art's gruesomely beautiful sculptures. Anthill Art pours aluminum into anthills and lets it harden. The sculpture is then excavated and blasted with water to remove dirt and impurities, and the final piece reveals the amazing twists and turns that make up an ant colony.

The Christmas-tree-like sculpture above is a cast of a fire ant colony — there are casts of different kinds of ants that have been previously sold, all taking on peculiar shapes. The clear losers in this situation are the ants — according to a representative posting on Anthill Art's Facebook page, sometimes the colonies are abandoned and sometimes they're not. The sculptures are insane and amazing pieces of art, if you can stomach their origins.