Is Your Zen Garden A Little Too Tranquil?

Boston area artist John Rooney seems like he’s still stuck in his Freudian anal phase, caught between the compulsion to create and the inscrutable drive to destroy. Somehow the two impulses meld together in his work, Crash Bonsai, which follows the theme of car crashes.

Rendered in miniature for bonsai trees taking the place of real car killers, his work takes on a chilling aspect with whimsical undertones. You purchase the car and place it in your own potted bonsai tree. Rooney offers the following:

Each model is unique, and individually disassembled, cut, melted, filed, smashed, then reassembled to replicate a real fender bender. Some models might work perfectly with a bonsai you already have, but generally you should expect to create a new bonsai around the vehicles, often placing the tree more to the side of a pot to make room for the vehicle.

Aww, how cute. Some tiny guy drove his tiny Lincoln Continental into a tiny tree, killing him and his tiny date instantly. Now they’re in minature heaven. How zen!

Artist’s page [crashbonsai.com]