Artist Creates Amazing Giant Sand Drawings on Irish Beaches

The art of impermanence.

Art, as everything on Earth, is impermanent, and this piece of wisdom can hardly be better demonstrated than by the amazing sand art of Manu, an artist born in Chile who is now based in Waterford, Ireland. He loves spending his days on nearby beaches, where he has to work against time to complete his massive art pieces – that can reach almost 40 meters in diameter – in the gap he gets between high and low tides.

“So how did I get to do sand art? It all started in 2008/2009 on one of my beach walks with my two kids. I found a piece of driftwood and like many others started scribbling in the sand,” Manu told Earthly Mission. “I used to always draw a secret message that I designed in 1990 and which my wife wear as a tattoo instead of a wedding ring.”

“Nature – in my case the incoming and outgoing tides – provides me with a perfect blank canvas, I use it in the time I’m given and then nature claims it back. It’s a fair deal and needs to be accepted.”

Manu shares his art on social media, where one commenter noted: “It’s so beautiful and artistic but too bad to be erased after by the waves.”

“I need the ocean eraser, otherwise I have no blank canvas the next day,” Manu replied.

That said, he never leaves a beach design before the tide reaches it and starts erasing it.

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