Hand-Cut Photorealistic Paper Portraits by Yoo Hyun.

Armed with a scalpel, tweezers and a large sheet of paper, Korean artist Yoo Hyun hand-carves intricate portraits of celebrities, past and present. Up close, Hyun’s pieces look like abstract images, but from afar they read as photo-realistic depictions of his subjects. Each one of his portraits incorporates a distinctive chevron pattern, where each line is specially cut to build a three dimensional looking form.

Hyun then layers the negative space of his portraits with a backdrop image, which radically transforms the way these portraits are perceived. Some would call this effect a total “headf*ck”. Given that we’re completely against swearing around here (ha!), we like to describe his work as multi-layered imagery with subtle yet powerful results.

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[Images courtesy of Yoo Hyun.]