Lonesome Town: Meet the street artist turning abandoned furniture into sad clowns

'There’s something beautifully tragic about it'

An artist is documenting an on-going series of street installations that transform discarded furniture into sad clowns.

No matter where you live, abandoned refrigerators, mattresses and worn-out sofas that have been kicked to the curb are commonplace.

And, it’s safe to say that all this household debris can make for quite an eyesore.

However, there is one person transforming said junk into inspiring pieces of art.

For more than a year, an anonymous artist who goes by the name Lonesome Town has been painting rejected household items in Korea Town, Los Angeles, with his signature – the face of a cartoonish crying clown.

The venture began after the artist spotted an unwanted fridge by the roadside which, he says, was sadly staring back at him.

“This thing that was utilized on a daily basis, an integrated part of somebody’s family … just abandoned,” he told LA Weekly.

“There’s something beautifully tragic about it.”

On the first day he drew just a face on it, but when he returned the following day and it was still there, he added buttons, polka dots and even a hat.

Ever since then, the artist regularly rides around on his bike until he spots something that moves him before spending anywhere between 10 and 90 minutes humanising the inanimate objects.

“It makes me so happy because I feel nobody cares about these micro sad thingies.

“I feel like the humour is just as important as the sad sentiment — a weird little level playing field between the two.”

Documenting the installations on his Instagram page @lonesometown9, passers by are starting to take notice too using hashtags like #sadclown and #sadcouch alongside pictures of the anthropomorphised items.

A fine artist in real life, the man behind Lonesome Town sells his work by commission and was once employed by Warner Bros.

However, he admits that he isn’t doing this project for the money or the glory, but simply because “it’s liberating.”