Armed with a toothpick and a rudimentary scraper, Keisuke Yamada turns your ordinary bunch of bananas into intricate sculptures of art.
The 23-year-old Yamada, an electrician by day and an intrepid fruit carver by night, became a viral sensation in his native Japan after images of banana busts of Kate Middleton, Homer Simpson and Davy Jones from Pirates of the Caribbean circulated the Internet.
Yamada explained to Metro why he went crazy for sculpting bananas. “I often used to buy bananas for my mum, so there were a lot of bananas at home,” he said. “One day I was a little bored, so I began to carve out the face of an anime character in the fruit. So out of boredom, I am happy that people can say that this is art.”
After feasting your eyes on this depiction of Poseidon with five horse companions, you could say the two hours Yamada spent sculpting this really bore fruit. In truth, Yamada worked furiously against the clock to finish the job before the bananas got spoiled. “To stop the rotting process, my secret is to douse the banana with some lemon juice,” Yamada told Metro.
Asked if his fruity figures are completely edible – with no funny glue on them – Yamada replied, “Yes, they’re edible alright, but Poseidon’s arms are made from toothpicks so there are some bones there.
“I eat my sculptures after I have completed them. But to be honest, I don’t really like bananas. I’ve gotten tired of eating them.”
