Japanese photographer Yuichi Ikehata creates realistic sculptures of human body parts using clay, wire and paper. He then photographs the sculptures and merges them into unrealistic worlds to create Long Term Memory (LTM), an ongoing photographic series that “puts audiences in the ambivalent position of not knowing what is real and what is not.”

The 40-year old artist currently lives and works in Chiba, Japan. It’s not exactly the type of place you’d imagine Ikehata’s deathly, decomposing imagery come to life. But then again, Ikehata’s understanding of reality comes from small fragments of moments both beautiful and sad. They often come from days when nothing special happens at all. “I retrieve those fragmented moments and reconstruct them as surreal images,” explains the artist.