Rubbish Sculpture
Art Is Trash: Francisco de Pájaro and the Politics of Rubbish Sculpture
In the quiet hours of the morning or under the amber glow of a streetlamp, a strange figure might suddenly appear on a London street corner. A creature with bulging eyes and limbs fashioned from discarded tape stretches out on a mattress-turned-horse. A grotesque face grins from within a pile of refuse. Around the next bend, a new figure—mocking, poetic, or perhaps slightly terrifying—rises from the wreckage of consumer culture. This is not an accident, nor the beginning of a Halloween prank. This is Art is Trash.
Behind this provocative name is Spanish artist Francisco de Pájaro, a sculptor who works not in marble or clay, but in society’s unwanted leftovers. Born in Barcelona and now known internationally for his ephemeral urban interventions, de Pájaro transforms garbage into fleeting works of art—comedic, grotesque, and deeply human. His sculptures are spontaneous compositions built from black bin liners, broken chairs, torn clothing, and whatever else he stumbles across on the street. They last only hours, sometimes minutes, before the city’s cleaning crews whisk them away.
Creating Beauty from Society’s Refuse
De Pájaro revels in the transient nature of his work. “Garbage is hated, ignored, considered smelly and rotten,” he once explained. “But for me, it has become a place to create monsters, to make fun of politicians and the humourless.” His monsters are vivid, emotionally raw figures, wide-eyed and trembling, often caught in absurd or absurdly human situations—hugging, screaming, laughing, or glaring out with panic and fear. His art may be transient, but the reaction it evokes is visceral and lasting.
These sculptures are not random. They are deliberate compositions that challenge how we perceive both art and trash. What most of us view as the smelly by-product of modern life, de Pájaro sees as a free, expressive medium. “I am creating fun and beauty out of something society considers gross and disgusting,” he says. The uglier the material, the greater its potential in his hands.
His approach also allows for blistering political commentary. One now-famous installation featured a terrified Julian Assange clinging to an equally frightened Edward Snowden—both portrayed as trash-sculpture effigies made from found objects. Without saying a word, de Pájaro’s work holds up a mirror to the chaos and contradictions of our times.
London: A New Stage for Street Resistance
In the early 2010s, Francisco de Pájaro left Spain in search of artistic freedom. The economic crisis had cast a long shadow over his homeland, and draconian laws had begun to stifle street expression. London, with its more open urban culture and larger international audience, offered him a fresh start—even if it didn’t pay.
“Painting trash in London is certainly not making me any money,” he laughed in an early interview, “but it is great fun.” For him, the street became a gallery with no gatekeepers, no price tags, and no walls. He began to see the conventional art world as a parasitic machine: “I thought it was absurd to paint pictures that no one would buy. The art market was flocked with vultures. I turned my thinking on its head and took to the streets.”
London gave his work new life. With every trash day came a fresh palette. A pile of thrown-out furniture became a protest figure. Discarded Christmas wrapping paper became the dress of a tragic clown. Each piece bore his scrawled tag: Art is Trash—a message that is both sarcastic and sincere.
Ephemeral Fame and Digital Afterlife
What makes Art is Trash especially compelling is its fleeting nature. It exists to disappear. Each sculpture lives on borrowed time, quickly dismantled by sanitation workers or swept away by rain. Yet ironically, it is social media that has granted these ephemeral creations a strange sort of permanence.
Although de Pájaro does not maintain his own Instagram account, his works have found wide visibility under the hashtag #artistrash. Fans and followers upload pictures of his latest creations, often tagging the location before the street cleaners arrive. “It’s nice to see this giving it some sort of permanency,” he said, recognizing that documentation—photographic and digital—is now part of the creative process.
The reactions to his work are as varied as his subjects. Many embrace his raw humor and social critique. Others are scandalized, or simply dismissive. De Pájaro doesn’t mind. “I quite like painting for people who hate it, for people who are snobs and think they are better than others. If you look closely, some of them are my monsters.”
From Rubbish to Revelation
Francisco de Pájaro’s work raises uncomfortable questions: What is art? Who decides its value? And what becomes of culture when it’s as disposable as the trash it produces?
Through Art is Trash, he answers not with theory, but with action—an urgent, improvisational act of creation that happens in the open, in the dirt, with materials that are, by most standards, dead. And yet, they live again.
His practice isn’t just about sculpture or satire—it’s a philosophical stance. He strips away the pretension of the gallery space, rejects the commodification of art, and brings expression back to the everyday. In doing so, he turns the street itself into a stage and the city’s waste into a living archive of emotion, resistance, and absurdity.
As long as we keep throwing things away, de Pájaro will have something to say. And as long as there’s a corner of the city not yet swept clean, Art is Trash will remain alive—if only for a moment.
