In Our Image: Fragmented Sculptures of Humankind.

From the godly Winged Victory of Samothrace in Le Louvre, to Michelangelo’s giant David at Galleria dell’Accademia and Rodin’s smooth embrace, The Kiss—artists across history seem to have enjoyed freezing our likeness and our stories, great battles, loves and lives in glossy stone. The classic and ancient masterpieces pitched heroes and biblical characters as towering, stone-faced gods—a lasting testament to humanity’s perishable, earthly legend.

Now though, a new set of artists are creating marble portraits and classical spinoffs that show off the human form, but also our fragmented, flawed nature—and the complicated, cracked, and crooked world we live in. Here are just a few of our favourites.

See more portrait art on Yellowtrace.

Portrait of Julian by Alejandro Maestre // Spanish photographer Alejandro Maestre has worked with the likes of Burberry and Audi, and is interested in fleshing out the boundaries of digital post-production magic. His latest personal project is EL HOMBRE QUE SE CREA—a striking portrait series of artist Julián Cánovas-Yañez. Julian is a multidisciplinary artist and basically the modern iteration of the renaissance man. Across the series of 20 images, Julian sculpts himself into being, discovering his artistic body and spirit.

Emerging Figures by Graziano Locatelli // Italian sculptor Graziano Locatelli’s humans burst forth from cracked subway tiles, being born into a new reality or breaking free from an imprisoned state. It’s a reinterpretation of the classic flat plane, bass-relief style sculpture, showing humanity amongst disruption and wreckage.

Abstract Sculptures by Barbara Leoniak // Sculptor Barbara Leoniak’s abstract faces may appear like ribbons of marble from a distance—a stone rendering of an Egyptian mummy unravelling perhaps. They are, however, made of cardboard dipped in milky white resin. Almost a Möbius strip with one continuous line joining the faces, each sculpture exhibits a sense of continuity and interconnectivity.

Broken Figures by Daniel Arsham // New York-based artist Daniel Arsham is the artist half of art slash architecture duo, Snarkitecture. His eerie human sculpture was first shown at the exhibition booth of Baró Galeria at UNTITLED art fair in Miami in 2015. The five fragments make up the shape of a doe-eyed woman, frozen in broken pieces of silvery selenite crystal and volcanic ash.

IF I WERE by Cao Hui // Chinese artist Cao Hui’s fractured bust breaks down to reveal the great mind within. Cast in resin to resemble classic sculpture, the artist gives life to the frozen likeness. Maybe Cao Hui is suggesting the old masters succeeded in preserving humanity’s vitality and legend in inanimate stone statues: our creativity and lifeblood and ingenuity live on, beneath the stony surface.

Marble Sculptures by Jonathan Owen // Scottish artist Jonathan Owen’s sculptures begin as relics of another time: 19th-century marble statues and busts that he re-carves into disjointed and fragmented versions of their original selves. Each piece is a wildly intricate fusion of human and object, a surprising, surreal evolution of form.

[Images courtesy of the artists.]