Until now, you’ve probably thought of bananas as a solid, dependable fruit and a good source of potassium.

However, they are also an amazing canvas for creating artwork as displayed by the work of Dutch artist Stephan Brusche.

Working out of Rotterdam, Netherlands, Stephan has been making banana art for nearly seven years and the results are mind-blowing.

Drawing upon imagery from religion, pop culture, wildlife and technology, Stephan’s whimsical creations have seen him go viral on Instagram with his posts raking up thousands of likes from his more than 79,000 followers.

“How does one start creating banana art?” you may ask. For Stephan, it was out of a persistence from his wife to share his illustrations and comics online. Speaking to indy100 he said:

My wife had been pushing me to use Instagram for while, saying it would be great for promoting my illustrations and comics I’ve been doing in my spare time, besides my work as a graphic designer.

And just after lunchtime, I wanted to experiment a bit with the app, try out the filters and such. But since I was at the office I didn’t really have anything fun or interesting to photograph.

I then noticed I still had a banana left from lunch and figured it would make a fun picture if I just drew a little happy face on it. Discovering how pleasant it actually is to draw on a banana – there is just something about how smooth the ballpoint pen flows on the structure of the banana peel – I made another ‘fruitdoodle’, as I like to call them, the next day. One with a grumpy face, for balance sake.

And after that, I just kinda challenged myself to see what else I could come up with to draw on a banana, and I never stopped since. After a while, I also noticed that I was getting more likes and attention for my drawings on bananas than my other stuff.

So instead of my other projects, I gradually started to focus more and more on the banana art.

Stephan’s inspiration for the ongoing project comes from a variety of sources including classical art, movies and music but it can often just be the shape of the fruit on the supermarket stand.

He adds:

Sometimes the shape of the banana inspires me, like when I saw two bananas in the supermarket together and it made me think of Gustav Klimt ‘The Kiss’.

Other times I just want to make something and look for original ways to draw it on a fruit. Subject matter wise it’s the old classic painter like Da Vinci, Dali, Vincent van Gogh, animals and pop culture (movies, series and music).

Where does Stephan want to take banana art next? Well, his ambitions are to take fruit art worldwide.

Banana art has taken me across the border from Germany to the USA and I would love to get more invitations to do my banana art across the globe.

Stephan’s work isn’t just exclusive to bananas. He’s been known to incorporate all manner of fruit into his repertoire.

So, next time you have a piece of fruit in your hand don’t just view it as a healthy and nutritious snack. View it as a piece of art which has endless possibilities.

If you would like to see more of Stephan’s work, be sure to visit his personal website or follow him on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

Source: boredpanda