These Incredible Photographic Portraits are Disguised as Sculpture

Meticulous and intricate.

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What you’re looking at can be baffling on first sight. Broken shards of color emanate from central radii, spewing into the universe with an explosion of momentum. And though the shapes and shades work as individual pieces, it helps us more to understand that this is not pure geometric abstraction—these are photos of human faces. This is the work of Justine Khamara, a Melbourne-based artist with quite a skill for transforming faces into surreal sculptures.

Elsewhere, her works turns into spherical striations of one man’s face, or into portraits you can almost see through, as if through a screen. The work looks as if it’s been futzed with in Photoshop or some other digital imager. But Khamara’s work is all done by hand, with a very, very sharp blade, a steady hand, and a lot of patience. In a culture where the minute details of information and ephemera often go overlooked or flash by, these sculptures remind us to pump the brakes and take stock of an entire whole, from each significant detail up. Apply that to a human face and you’re looking at a visual translation of morals: be humane to each other. We’re all just dust scattered across the landscape.

Check out more of the artist's work here

RELATED: 25 Awesome Contemporary Portrait Artists 

[via PSFK]

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