UK based artist, Nick Veasey, understands better than most that beauty is more than skin deep. That’s because the award winning image maker creates his art using x-ray machines as opposed to cameras. To date, more than 10 years into his career, Nick has x-rayed thousands upon thousands of objects ranging from children’s toys, to full size airplanes, to organic mater such as plants and even humans.

The processes used to create Nick’s images are not as simple as they might seem. Since the largest x-ray film is only 14 inches wide, and Nick x-rays things as large as 777s, he spends much time piecing together multiple images in Photoshop – this is also where he occasionally adds color to the inherently black and white images.

For those versed in x-rays, you will likely note that Nick’s art bears little resemblance to that seconds long blurry shot taken by your radiologist. There is good reason for this. As opposed the the seconds you spend under the active x-ray machine, Nick’s subjects can spend up to 12 minutes receiving radiation to achieve the image quality you see here. Since this level of radiation is not an option for a live human, the hands and legs shown above are either of rubber suited skeletons (used to train radiologists) or newly deceased cadavers (which must be posed and x-rayed within 8 hours, before rigor mortis sets in). Yeeps! Shown at top – two hand x-rays grace the wall of a home designed by Belgium based design firm, Co. Studio. Who can help but wonder if the x-ray is of a rubber suited skeleton or an actual cadaver?

Photos: 1. courtesy of costudio.be, 2 – 6 courtesy of nickveasey.com.