LEGO bricks are an accepted artistic medium. Like oil paint, stone, clay, or wood, LEGO bricks are used by fine artists for self-expression and to comment upon our human experience visually.
The following professional fine artists, hobby artists, and master model builders are “physically” building the way for future LEGO artists of all types, and we’re so grateful!
- Reza Aliabadi (rzlbd)
- Mariann Asanuma
- John Bucy
- Rocco Buttliere
- Richard Drydon
- Mike Doyle
- Katherine Duclos
- Graeme Dymond
- Warren Elsmore
- FukuTaku
- Kate Hunter
- Colin Jin
- Gregory Jonason
- Sean Kenney
- M’BricK
- Maurizio Lampis
- Kanna Nakayama
- Aaron Newman
- Ekow Nimako
- Amado Canlas Pinlac
- Roy Scholten
- Chris Thomas
- Dave Kaleta
- Jeff Sanders
- Nathan Sawaya
- Jan van Schaik
- Sharon Vance
- Craig Ward
- Phillip Weatherford
- Ai Weiwei
The idea that a child’s plastic building block is also an artistic medium worthy of display in the world’s most prestigious art galleries is relatively new to the fine art world, so you may be surprised that the Columbus Museum of Art in Ohio had a LEGO exhibit display celebrating its 10th year in 2023 and many art galleries around the world include yearly LEGO exhibitions.
Reza Aliabadi (rzlbd)
Aliabadi is a Toronto-based architect. His LEGO journey started when he was four years old, living in Tehran, Iran, and his “LEGO addiction” continues as an adult, now professionally. Aliabadi’s signature or sole mark is rzlbd, and his studio is Atelier RZLBD.
Ongoing themes of his art include investigating serial works. Recent work brings the LEGO brick into this repetitive exploration. 100 Abject Towers is marked by its use of yellow and gray 2×4 LEGO bricks, shown as a collection of 100 miniature towers. Explore all work (including non-LEGO medium projects) by visiting https://www.rzlbd.com and scrolling to the bottom to choose from installations, paintings, drawings, and photographs.
Mariann Asanuma
Asanuma’s claim to fame is that she is the world’s first female freelance LEGO artist. Her company, Model Building Secrets, has been providing LEGO model-building services for almost 15 years. She started her professional LEGO career in 2003, working at LEGOLAND® California as the first female American Master Model Builder. She’s written books about LEGO building and created commissioned works for large corporations like Google.
John Bucy
In 2022, Bucy, a hobby artist, brought a solo art show titled “The LEGO Show,” featuring over 30 pop art mosaics and architectural sculptures with LEGO brick as the medium. This is the first time LEGO has been displayed in an exhibition at the Pump House Center for the Arts in Ohio. Bucy started modeling as an adult in 1999, and since then, he has spent his free time making LEGO brick fine art and commissions.
Rocco Buttliere
Buttliere is a Chicago-based fine artist. Holding an architectural degree, it’s no surprise that his LEGO sculptures are architectural feats focusing on landscapes and landmarks. Recently, his LEGO model of Ancient Rome was touring with BrickUniverse.
Richard Drydon
Drydon competed in LEGO Masters with Dave Kaleta; after the show, in 2022, they continued to collaborate by creating the exhibit “Awesome Black Creativity,” highlighting 26 creative figures who have built our culture, including VENUS & SERENA Williams.
Read a thought-provoking interview with the team on Brick Nerds.
Mike Doyle
Mike Doyle is a graphic designer, internationally acclaimed Lego artist, and writer of three LEGO books. He describes his work as “fusing the organic free forms of reality with the hard mechanical system of LEGO.”
Katherine Duclos
Duclos is a Vancouver-based multidisciplinary fine artist working in painting, sculpture, photography, and LEGO. Holding an MFA in Painting and Drawing from Pratt Institute, Katherine Duclos is an autistic mother with ADHD who produces work that explores her reality – abstract creations full of texture and color expressing a sense of place or mood. Viewers of her work often have a visceral experience. She says, “People just kept touching their fingers…like their fingers were having memories of touching the material. There’s a neuron that fires in our brain when we see something that we’ve touched before. We have a memory of it. And for an abstract artist, that’s an incredible access point.”
Currently, she is partnered with LEGO to create large LEGO canvas installations, and it all began with her young son requesting, “Will you play LEGO with me?”
Graeme Dymond
Dymond is one of Canada’s only LEGO-certified master model builders. Known by his company name, Dymond Bricks, Dymond is a LEGO® Certified Professional, brick artist, event facilitator, master builder, and corporate trainer. In 2022, his 25,000 LEGO brick Amazon commission of The Posts is displayed as public art in Vancouver.
Warren Elsmore
Elsmore is a professional LEGO artist based out of Edinburgh, UK. His company “specializes in creating world-class exhibitions and bespoke commissions from LEGO® bricks.” In 2022, his current gallery exhibition is called Brick Wonders and is on display at the Novium Museum, UK. The exhibit features over 500,000 bricks highlighting wonders old and new, including The Great Barrier Reef.
FukuTaku
Truly pushing the limit of using LEGO bricks as a sculptural medium, FukuTaku masterfully sculpts with light in this White whale sculpture, reminding me of Wyland’s whale sculptures.
Kate Hunter
Kate Hunter, also known as The Brick Huntress, is a US-based LEGO artist with a BA in Art History, a Minor in Fine Arts, and a Master’s in Counseling Psychology. Kate found bricks as her artistic medium when, in 2018, she visited Nathan Sawaya’s Art of the Brick exhibition. Inspired, she returned home and built her first mosaic, “Girl.” She’s a mom who also shares her LEGO passion with her children. She is best known for her mosaics, some original and some recreations of her favorite 1960s Pop Art.
According to her interview in Talk Paper Scissors, Kate’s goal “is to show young girls and women that they can do whatever they’re passionate about; don’t settle, keep growing as an artist and as a person.”
Colin Jin
Colin Jin is a contemporary Korean LEGO artist who, in 2023, had his first solo exhibit, ‘HEstorical Lego’, at the Moryham Exhibition Center in Seoul. His exhibit features Korean heritage artwork, such as a traditional Korean music performance.
Gregory Jonason
Gregory Jonason is a US-based brick artist focusing on LEGO mosaics and sculptures. His company is known as Bricks in a Snap.
Celebrating that LEGO is now seen as a fine art medium, in 2022, the Houston, Texas Pearl Fincher Museum of Fine Arts put together a LEGO exhibition; Jonason is part of this exhibition. Jonason works at the University of Houston and is an artist in his free time.
Sean Kenney
New York-based sculptor Kenney is best known for his larger-than-life nature sculptures built from LEGO bricks. Since 2012, his sculptures have toured the world and delighted viewers at gardens, arboretums, zoos, and museums. Kenney’s award-winning work includes exhibits, portraiture, children’s books, and commissioned artwork.
Kenney is quoted as saying, “I’ve been playing with Lego toys ever since I was probably two years old, and you know, my creations just became more and more elaborate as I got older.”
In 2024, Kenney’s exhibit, Animal Super Powers, is touring. This exhibit took five years of work and uses about 1.3 million LEGO bricks. It is touted as showcasing “creatures who have evolved to possess their very own ‘super powers’ and invites you to learn the science behind them.”
In 2022, after the mass shooting in a Uvalde, Texas elementary school, Kenney commemorated each child with a LEGO portrait. He is quoted in Kens5 News, “The irony there is children should be playing with toys and not hiding under desks,” said Kenney. “In these portraits, I intentionally left many pieces out so they’re not finished because these kids didn’t get to finish their lives.”
A portrait from the Uvalde Student series.
M’BricK
M’BricK is a former professional sportsman turned artist who expresses himself through LEGO. He creates 3D works by pixelation made of thousands of tangled LEGO pieces, resulting in several reading possibilities. Currently, this French artist has 30+ LEGO paintings that are primarily recreations of existing photographs, logos, or paintings. His paintings are also purchasable as prints.
Maurizio Lampis
Lampis is a LEGO builder who founded the KaralisBrick Cultural Association and Brick Museum in Sardinia, Italy (a northern Italian island.) Works of LEGO Art include medieval castles and monuments of Sardinia, including the Basilica di Bonaria in Cagliari.
Kanna Nakayama
Nakayama is Asia’s first female Lego master model builder. Her workshop is at the Legoland Discovery Center in Osaka. Her love of LEGO bricks started as a child, and in kindergarten, she wrote that she wanted to work with Legos when she grew up.
Aaron Newman
Brick designer and full-time brick artist Aaron Newman was a contestant on the first season of LEGO Masters in the US.
Ekow Nimako
Nimako is a Toronto-based Ghanaian–Canadian artist known for surrealistic LEGO art. With formal fine arts training, Nimaka is a professional LEGO sculptor who intentionally weaves a positive black narrative into his body of work. Notably, the ‘Building Black’ series uses black LEGO pieces and draws inspiration from West African culture; AMORPHIA includes elements of West African mask-making. Current works continue his portrayal of an Afrofuturistic take on Black civilizations.
Nimako also published a book, Beasts from Bricks, which features colorful build instructions for animals from around the world. This book is included in our Best LEGO Gift Ideas post.
In an interview with CNN, Nimako is quoted as saying, “I’m making art. This is fine art. It’s not a hobby, it’s not a toy, it’s not part of the Lego fandom, it’s not goofy. It doesn’t fall into a lot of categories that Lego creations fall into.”
Amado Canlas Pinlac
Amado Pinlac, known on social media as ACPin, is a Master LEGO artist who often tours with Brick Convention. Best known for his Star Wars dioramas and botanical builds, Pinlac has been creating public displays since 2007. In an interview with Brothers Brick, he revealed that his favorite build is the Theed Hangar.
Roy Scholten
Roy Scholten is a Dutch fine artist working in letterpress. For over a decade he has been perfecting the his Lego brick letter press technique. This experimentation started while trying to find ways to teach letterpress to elementary school students; after exploring with LEGO bricks as a printing tool he thought “Oh, wow, the potential and the visual vocabulary in these elements is super rich.”
In 2024, after six years of work, he exhibited a body of work titled, “50 Vogels,” includes prints of 50 birds native to the Netherlands. He’s given himself the parameters to build all the bird prints on LEGO 16×16 base plates, show the entire bird and to create the prints using only existing Lego bricks, without manipulation.
Chris Thomas
Chris Thomas is a Canadian multimedia artist who, during the pandemic, turned to LEGO bricks as his medium of choice. He built Fredericton from LEGO bricks, calling the show “Smalltown Lego Exhibit.” His LEGO sculptures differ slightly from other artists’ work because he ages the buildings. He adds labels and uses paints, markers, and other materials to create scenes that feel like the spaces and buildings he is recreating.
Dave Kaleta
Kaleta’s presence in the LEGO art scene was expanded because of his appearance on Lego Masters. Kaleta’s displays and exhibitions are still at AFOL conventions, and since he participated in the LEGO Masters show, his work has been displayed in museums, too. In 2024, the exhibit “Awesome Black Creativity” by Kaleta and was featured at DuPage Children’s Museum.
The museum’s Arts and Maker specialist says about the exhibit, “It’s 26 Lego figurines depicting amazing Black creativity. So there’s artists of all kinds and athletes, all these representations of how these people impacted our world.”
We love how LEGO alphabets are woven into their work, too, similar to Arts and Brick’s LEGO Alphabet of Gratitude.
Jeff Sanders
Sanders is a LEGO geometric artist. Known as Brick Bending, his LEGO sculptures have been viewed more than 100 million times across online platforms in every corner of the world. Jeff describes his work as sitting “at the nexus of art, engineering, mathematics, ancient traditions, and popular culture–exploring the patterns inherent in LEGO® bricks, and pushing the limits of what can be created with the ubiquitous construction toy.”
Nathan Sawaya
Sawaya is an international-touring contemporary artist building large-scale LEGO brick sculptures. Formally trained and practicing as a corporate lawyer, Sawaya left law and forged his path as a fine artist. Sawaya is the first fine artist to use LEGO bricks (a toy) as a fine art medium and subsequently brought a new aesthetic that merges Pop Art and Surrealism into the modern art gallery space. Check The Art of the Brick website’s schedule for upcoming exhibitions; you may have a chance to explore Sawaya’s outdoor art installation of ‘Hugman’ LEGO brick sculptures on tour.
Speaking about his long work hours, Sawaya quips, “The worst day as an artist is still better than the best day as a lawyer!”
Jan van Schaik
Melbourne architect turns old LEGO bricks into new art in his modern Lost Tablets exhibit.
Sharon Vance
Vance is an American artist. A rare ALS diagnosis changed this artist’s medium from paint to LEGO bricks. Uniquely, Vance’s artwork is mapped out by hand-drawn sketches rather than computer renderings.
Craig Ward
Ward is a British-born designer, creative director, and author experimenting with brick-built typography in a project called BrikFont.
Phillip Weatherford
Weatherford is an American multidisciplinary artist holding a BFA in Emerging Art with a Graphic Design track. Through his company, Horizoneer Design, he designs and creates themed entertainment, including scaled 3D models built from LEGO bricks. His LEGO sculptures feature iconic symbols like Spaceship Earth and Chronos Tower, the entrance archway of Universal Epic Universe. He recently started showing his work publicly at conventions such as Megacon Orlando 2024.
Ai Weiwei
In 2023, Weiwei exhibited a 50-ft wide recreation mural of Claude Monet’s Waterlillies made from 650,000 Lego bricks in 22 colors. As a Chinese contemporary artist, his work often portrays political dissent with common objects and found “ready-made” objects. Weiwei has used Lego bricks in his artistic practice since 2014.
Are there more Famous LEGO artists?
Please comment below or send us a note to add more LEGO artists to our growing list of Best LEGO Artists.
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