Religious Icon Macrame Art

St. Nicholas the Miracle-Maker by Denshchikov Vladimir (Images: Art Hit Gallery)

This ain't your grandma's macrame! Ukrainian artist Vladimir Denshchikov turned the knotting craft into epic works of religious art:

Only the faces and hands of the saints in Denshchikov’s icons are painted on canvas, everything else is made from millions of linen knots. The artist doesn’t use any tools, like needles or crochets to make the knots, all the patterns and details are created directly by hand. The material used for these incredible artworks is created by the artist himself: he takes a piece of pure linen cloth (a fabric associated with Orthodox Faith), soaks it in water and takes it apart one string at a time. He uses linen threads between 0.5 and 2 meters long and works between 3 and 6 months on a single 40×50 cm icon. It might sound like a long time, but let’s not forget one of these things numbers up to nine million tiny knots, each made by hand.