A Husband and Wife Slice and Dice Human Faces | Monday Insta Illustrator

A photo posted by kit king (@kit_king) on Oct 26, 2015 at 5:54pm PDT

A human head is lying on a table, delicately sliced up as cube-like as a spheroid noggin can be. There's no blood, and the expression spread amongst the pieces seems serene. One can't help but morbidly wonder about the circumstances of his death, and how the murderer cleaved through bone and brain with such elegance and cleanliness—perhaps the delicately-arranged body parts were freeze-dried?

The scene described above is Canadian husband and wife duo Kit King and Corey "Oda" Popp's hypersurreal painting, Raw, which so many Instagram commenters confused for a sculpture that King added an edit explaining that the artwork was strictly 2D. She and Popp explore human facial structure with a mixture of scientific inquiry and a youthful fascination with bending things until they break.

A tongue-in-cheek painting called Facelift explores every minute detail of a dude who has mummified his face with packaging tape. Still more paintings see their subjects smeared with paint a lá Furiosa in Mad Max, or eyes sporting burst blood vessels. One man seems to have the eye of a cat or other strange beast. Another canvas looks like it's been punctured by an enthusiastically thrown middle finger. That one's called Creative Block.

Check out their work below.

A photo posted by Oda & King (@oda_and_king) on Jul 2, 2015 at 12:25pm PDT

A photo posted by Oda & King (@oda_and_king) on Jul 2, 2015 at 11:22am PDT

A photo posted by Oda & King (@oda_and_king) on Jul 2, 2015 at 11:32am PDT

A photo posted by Oda & King (@oda_and_king) on Aug 16, 2015 at 9:46am PDT

A photo posted by Oda & King (@oda_and_king) on Feb 9, 2016 at 3:01pm PST

A photo posted by kit king (@kit_king) on Feb 4, 2016 at 11:06am PST

My wifey @kit_king and I getting snazzy and taking snappy pics in front of our completed oil painting titled "Our Little Secret". One of the 5 paintings we will have at the group show 'Transfigure' @lastritesgallery on August 22nd.

A photo posted by Corey 'Oda' Popp (@oda.paints) on Jul 30, 2015 at 4:36pm PDT

"Artist Block" 20"x20" oil on linen Do you ever just want to punch your canvas and say F*%# YOU! ? So this will now be my painting for the #paintguide show at @theunitlondon.  I've actually painted five pieces for this show before this one, that all got tossed. Reasons spanning from legal issues, personal screw ups, to damage from kitties.  Soooo after weeks wasted, I was extremely frustrated and couldn't think of a new piece to paint for this show. And I was running out of days to do it. For the first time in my life I experienced ARTIST BLOCK… I didn't know how to combat this… I asked my husband angrily "can I just paint a giant middle finger… B/c that's how I feel right now"…. And so I did just that.  Any of you guys relate to this? How do you combat artist block?  Ps- my knuckles are red b/c I actually punched through a canvas to take the reference photo. That, my friends, is my idea of 'art therapy' 

A photo posted by kit king (@kit_king) on Nov 4, 2015 at 3:50pm PST

See more of Kit King and Corey "Oda" Popp's work on Instagram.

Related:

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Why Science Illustration Still Needs a Human Touch

Our Blood, Guts, And Anatomy As Art

Twisted Sculptures Put Body Parts in All the Wrong Places