It is said that the human mind recognizes the characteristics of the human face even if all of the elements are mixed up and out of place. Our minds automatically rearrange mixed-up faces to make sense of them. That is why these very unusual portraits from Jesús González may not seem entirely wrong at first. Some of the elements of the human faces are where they should be, leading our brains to fill in missing information and recognize the odd shapes as distinctly human.

The 1/2 Project features collages of human features, combining head-on views and side views of subjects to create fascinating – if slightly unsettling – portraits. Many of the features are in the right places, just oriented differently than they should be. This disparity leads the mind to feel slightly uncomfortable until we can consciously resolve the difference mentally.

The faces in the portraits are clearly a bit different than the standard human visages we look at every day. But in the few seconds before the eye fully adjusts to and takes in the odd perspective, it is difficult to pin down precisely what is unusual about them.

Once the brain resolves the strange combination of profile and straight-on views, it becomes clear just how much care was taken to line up facial features in precisely the right places. Without this attention to detail, the illusion would be immediately ruined upon first glance.