You Won't Believe What These Collages Are Made of

An American collage artist recreates Rembrandt using eyelashes and insects.

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Innovative American artist Michael Mapeshas taken to recreating masterful Dutch portraits as collages using (among other things) prints, insects, glass vials, eyelashes, hair, sequins, and gelatin capsules. The specimens are attached to the canvases using hundreds of specially placed pins. Mapes deconstructs renowned artworks, made by the likes of Rembrandt and Nicolaes Eliasz Pickenoy, and then recreates them piecemeal into extraordinarily detailed collages. Up close, the viewer can see each piece of the collage as its own unit, where its own type and texture can be appreciated. But from far away, the works bear a remarkable, albeit pixilated, similarity to the original pieces.

Three of Mapes’ works will be included in the March 2014 exhibition “Face to Face” at the Yellowstone Art Museum in Billings, Montana.

RELATED: Artist Lavender Wolf’s Minimalist Collage Art Expresses His Eye for Color

[via Designboom]

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