Half painting, half sculpture! The outstanding 3D portrait, titled Descent, is created by artist Bruce Mackley by drilling over 20, 000 everyday screws into a wooden board. To sculpt this industrial mosaic, he used decking and framing screws and further set them into painted pine board at varying depths. The result is a breathtaking 3D painting that looks realistic from a certain distance. Only when you come closer, you’ll realise that this painting is actually made out of iron nails.

According to Mackley, this medium may be tedious and challenging, but it offers a fantastic level of undoing and redoing. It takes hundreds of hours painstakingly to work on each piece – as it requires adjusting and readjusting of screws to get the desired effect. We can imagine the immense patience and hard work required to make such detailed art piece.

The industrial screw art weighs over 350lb and stands seven-feet tall. A special trolley has been designed to relocate the painting with ease. This is the second screw painting created by him, the first one was displayed at the Midwestern art fair last year, where he found it appealed to new and unexpected demographics.

The Descent will be exhibited at The B.O.B. (Big Old Building) in downtown Grand Rapids this fall during ArtPrize 9. Even touching the piece is encouraged for the blind, as a way of creating a mental picture using their tactile senses.

Via: BoredPanda