Brian Dettmer, a New York-based artist known as the Book Surgeon, uses tweezers, knives, scalpels and other surgical tools to dissect and carve old books into intricate and beautiful sculptures.

Dettmer’s work has a sort of vintage touch to it because he uses old books – maps, encyclopedias, textbooks, manuals, and any other sort of literature that he can turn into an interesting piece of art.

Although his creative process does end up destroying (or adding to, depending on how you look at it) someone else’s creation, Dettmer has a different take on it; “My work is a collaboration with the existing material and its past creators and the completed pieces expose new relationships of the book’s internal elements exactly where they have been since their original conception.”

More info: briandettmer.com | Flickr (h/t: mymodernmet)