This hand-cut paper art is both beautiful and dainty

The artist creates fragile images through an inverse stencil technique, and the results look breathtakingly complex

Enjoy these wondrous, fragile little creations; just don't try and wrap your brain around how they were made. Artist Parth Kothekar, hailing from Ahmedabad in India, has begun selling the pieces on his Etsy store; hand-crafted, paper cutouts about the size of a palm which can then be framed, though some of his work has even been included in jewellery.

He wrote of his inspiration, "It was during my experiments with graffiti stencils that the idea of paper cuts came to my mind, then I began by creating the stencils in inverse fashion."

"This art form made me feel more connected to my work. I felt the ‘life’ in them. Initially I did this only as a hobby, but the inspiration from my close friends made me consider this as a profession."

"My artworks are based on everyday aspects of life. If it is challenging, it motivates me. The thing with papercuts is that one doesn’t know the final output until the end. I have an assumption of what it might look and that is what I work with. It is the curiosity of finding out if I have got it that keeps me going."

Kothekar has a variety of pieces available to buy on his Etsy site.