I’m always ambivalent when I see a new set of book art collages from British artist Alexander Korzer-Robinson. The Bristol-based artist’s work is undeniably brilliant and original, but I can’t help cringing when I think about the irreplaceable 19th and 20th century volumes that are destroyed in the process.

Korzer-Robinson creates the amazing 3D collages by painstakingly cutting out the text and leaving just the images from books in a process that took months to refine. Here’s how he describes the work:

The book pieces in the pictures have been made by cutting into the books, cutting around some of the illustrations and removing others. The composition is built only using the imagery that is already in a particular volume. I try to create hints of a narrative in my pieces without being too concrete, and this is something people seem to respond to. It is an invitation to the viewer to engage with the imagery, to enter into a dialogue with what they see.

You see more of the work and even purchase prints of the collages on the artist’s website.