Leeds artist Oliver Burns next to a portrait of Leeds United's former manager Marcelo Bielsa which he made out of over 1300 mini Rubik's cubes the artwork was bought by a local businessman Phil Thompson owner of a communications agency called Resource Sustainable Creativity based in Leeds, who placed work on show in his executive box at Elland Road Stadium, Leeds.
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00:00 Hi, I'm Oli, I'm a local artist from Leeds. I'm a massive diehard Leeds fan, all my life,
00:05 grew up within Leeds and I made this Rubik's Cube art piece of the greatest manager in
00:12 my lifetime, Marcelo Bielsa. I used a total of 1,300 Rubik's Cubes stacked up all on top
00:19 of each other to create Marcelo's face. This is the first ever picture I've ever made and
00:24 I sold it at the Norman Hunter charity event in Horsforth. This went to auction and the
00:32 company Resource won it at auction and it's now living in Ellum Road, the best place is
00:39 where Marcelo Bielsa deserves to stay, deserves to live. It's something I'm very proud of
00:44 and something that means a lot to me. I continue creating art around the world, selling it
00:49 globally, doing events, Rubik's Cube art is something I love doing and this is the first
00:56 of many future pieces. With this being my first ever Rubik's Cube picture I made, the
01:02 reason I got into Rubik's Cube art as it is so unique and so different was my uncle used
01:08 to do it for many, many years and was very successful and when he passed away in 2020,
01:14 I decided to carry on what he started and really continue his journey. With me being
01:21 a massive Leeds fan and my uncle being a massive Leeds fan, it only felt right to do something
01:25 like Marcelo Bielsa as my first piece. What Marcelo did for Leeds United, getting us promoted
01:32 back to where we belong, it just felt right at the time to do that picture and fortunately
01:38 he now lives inside Ellum Road which is something I'm very proud of. The difficulty is with
01:44 a Rubik's Cube, you've only got six colours to choose from and it's very pixelated so
01:48 it is very challenging to turn a face into lots of pixels and selecting those pixels
01:54 from a limited colour palette. So the difficulty is and the process is finding a picture, cutting
02:01 it down into the number of pixels, so pixelating the picture and then going each individual
02:07 pixel and converting it and matching it to the best corresponding colour of a Rubik's
02:11 Cube. The design process is the long bit, that's the time on the computer, the time
02:16 that takes lots of hours. The building takes about 10 to 15 hours solving and twisting
02:22 each Rubik's Cube individually. So I got into solving Rubik's Cubes being inspired by my
02:28 uncle watching YouTube tutorials and he really helped me from there. I can solve it in less
02:34 than a minute now but it really does blow people's mind being able to solve one Rubik's
02:39 Cube. Solving 1,300 to make Marcelo Bielsa's face has really got a cool reaction and from
02:46 there that's what snowballed into me becoming a full time Rubik's Cube artist, selling art
02:51 from Rubik's Cubes all around the world which is something I'm very proud of. Since the
02:57 first ever one that I did and selling the Marcelo Bielsa piece I've done lots of different
03:01 collections. I've done the Icons Divas collection where I've done people like Elton John and
03:06 David Bowie. Then I've also done the pop art style pictures that's influenced by my favourite
03:13 pop art artist. As well as lots of different sporting icons, animals, anything you can
03:19 name of I've sold it globally and worldwide to many clients. Currently I'm doing another
03:24 collection piece so I'm doing all my pop art collections inspired by lots of famous pictures
03:30 and converting them into a Rubik's Cube picture. So that's what I'm working on at the moment
03:35 in the next few weeks so stay tuned for that. The best place to see my work is through,
03:40 I primarily sell them at the moment through my Etsy shop which is Rubik's Cube Art and
03:45 I also have an Instagram which you can keep up to date with which is RubikCubismCIX.