Britain’s Got Talent star Nathan Wyburn is working on some royal work 13 years after being on the ITV show. He was a 21-year-old art student at the time of his audition, as he impressed the panel with his quirky talent of creating works of art out of food and household items.
The artist shot to fame back in 2011 when he created a painting of Michael McIntyre to an opera song. He made it through to the semi-finals and attempted to create several pieces of art resembling the likes of Michael Jackson, Marilyn Monroe, and Elvis Presley out of unusual items and materials.
More than a decade later, the Welsh food artist, who appeared on the series five of the talent show, is still showing off his creative side. He was commissioned by Buzz Bingo this week to create an incredible portrait of King Charles III, created using only bingo dabbers and bingo ticket.
Created with 80 bingo tickets and 12 dabbers, the portrait took only four hours for Nathan to make. It was created to celebrate the first year of the King’s reign.
The spectacular art piece was unveiled at Buzz Bingo club in Tooting on April 29, ahead of the coronation anniversary on May 6. Speaking to the Express, Nathan unveiled future plans for the portrait as he said: “I believe that there’s possible plans of it going on tour, possibly being auctioned off somewhere.”
Speaking about his latest experience, he said: “I make art using anything and everything and then when Buzz reached out to me, sort of threw a couple of ideas back and forth, but the dabbers just seemed absolutely perfect there.
“There’s so much colour. And yeah, it’s just, it was such a great thing. And then I suggested that we do it on a canvas of the bingo tickets.
“It worked out so well because a lot of the work that I do, I use a lot of food products and stuff like that. You don’t often get colours like blue and purple.
“There’s quite often just reds and browns and things like that. So it was really exciting to have so many vibrant colours to work with.”
While he often works with food products, Nathan was asked what does he do with his creations when they start to turn stale. He admitted that he sometimes eats them, as he said: “It was really sad to me when I first started using those kind of materials because obviously they they go off or I have to recycle them or whatever. I’ll maybe sometimes eat them.”
As well as recreating celebrities, Nathan, from Cardiff, has also had the pleasure of meeting some of his favourites. Just recently he appeared on the Kelly Clarkson show over in the States, where she gave him $1000 (equivalent to £785) “just for the hell of it”.
Speaking to the Express, Nathan shared some of the amazing celebrity experiences he has had due to his talents. He said: “I got to meet the actor Tom Holland. That was really cool, I presented him work using the chopped up Spider-Man costume.”
He has also previously worked with the royals who branded him “a very talented young man”. Nathan said: “I’ve presented work to Prince William and Kate. Also the King himself and Camilla back when he was Prince of Wales. He called me a very talented young man.”
As well as dabbling in the showbiz world, Nathan also likes to use his skills to help others. He said: “I got to create a piece for the NHS during the pandemic, which was like thank you to all the frontline workers. That was an amazing honour. That was on display outside all the hospitals in Wales and it was used in the opening credits of ITV’s This Morning.”
