Normally, you start with a 2D image to create a 3D one. In this case, Michael Zelehoski reverses the order by deconstructing old wood objects to make two-dimensional compositions.

The artist’s statement (from the “Info” page on Zelehoski’s website):

My recent work involves the collapse of three-dimensional objects and structures into two-dimensional, picture planes. I employ old wood, used furniture and salvaged structural elements. In the selection and composition of these materials, I seek to mark them in their singularity or potentiate them in their interaction in an effort to blur the distinction between art and the cotidian objects that surround us in our daily lives. In the collapse of the object I explore the duality between three-dimensional reality and two-dimensional pictorial space and try to push the continuum of representational art to a logical extreme. I employ various joining and woodworking techniques as well as fire, natural stains, paint and the forces of nature that have shaped these materials over time.

I begin by deconstructing the object, exploring spatial dimension as I cut it into sometimes hundreds of abstract fragments. I then reassemble the pieces, two-dimensionally and fill the negative spaces with carefully fitted pieces of wood, creating a solid two-dimensional plane in which the object is trapped in a parody of its former perspective. A chair, for example, remains a chair, formally and materially, even as its function is negated. As the object is re-contextualized, it reveals itself as an archetype as well, becoming all chairs through our association and the projection of our shared history. It is at once the aesthetic event, the representation, the object and the archetype.

Below: Photos of the making of a 2D art piece.

Link via Cool Hunting