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Artist Tosses Colorful Rice To Create 3D Portraits of Pop Culture Characters in Mid-Air

By Emma Taggart on March 4, 2021

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A post shared by Maria (@marialynnfamily)

There’s lots of weird and wonderful art out there, with many talented creatives using all sorts of materials to create visual masterpieces. There’s one art form that’s new to us, though—tossed rice art. Minnesota-based mom and artist Maria Lynn is the woman behind it. She creates portraits of pop culture characters using colored grains of rice, laid out on a wooden board. She then tosses them into the air, revealing 3D portraits that hover in the air for just a few split seconds.

Lynn films the quick moment in slow motion, so viewers are able to see how the rice motifs look just before they fall back into a jumbled pile on the board. From Winnie the Pooh to popular emoji characters, Lynn can make pretty much any image from colored rice. An incredible amount of patience is required in order to arrange each tiny grain into the right position. However, once the image is set out, Lynn gets to playfully undo her hard work by flipping it into the air and watching as gravity does its thing.

Lynn humorously gave herself the title “CEO of Tossing Rice Art” and she’s a total boss at her job. She describes what she does as “just a mom making rice art. Here to make you smile.”

Check out some of Lynn's tossed rice art below and find even more from this smile-inducing artist on Instagram and TikTok.