Korean artist Seung Mo Park creates cuts up layers of wire mesh by hand, to create some of the most beautiful large-scale portraits you’ve ever seen. These true sculptural masterpieces are part of Park’s latest series, called Maya.

In the past, we’ve featured several extraordinary artists who work with layers to create their art, and Seung Mo Park is right up there with the best of them. Although he uses a projection of the image he’s trying to replicate, as reference, the precision with which he cuts each little piece of wire mesh is nothing short of impressive. Just so you understand the kind of skill required to pull off something like this, it’s important that you know each of his portraits is made up of several layers of wire mesh set a few centimeters apart, each sculpted by hand. The understanding of depth perception and the patience necessary to complete just one of these amazing works of art is simply awe-inspiring.

Seung Mo Park starts off the creative process with a photo session. He then picks out the pictures he wants to recreate and heads to his studio, where he begins clipping away at several wire mesh layers. Using his unearthly sense of depth, the Korean artist is able to cut just enough out of each layer so that when he places them in the final artwork they render a perfect copy of the photograph. Because they are made up of several layers placed within centimeters of each other, his portraits tend to be a few inches thick.

You can check out a video of Seung Mo Park at work, and you can use it as guidance to try making these portraits yourself, but I doubt you’ll get the same results.

via This Is Colossal