When you first catch sight of the pieces in South Korean artist Jongjin Park’s Artistic Stratum ceramic series, it’s almost impossible to tell that they’re ceramics at all; their textured, layered surfaces call to mind everything from sponges to unsanded wood. But the pieces were in fact made using a technique Park stumbled upon while researching his Master’s thesis at Cardiff University in the UK: By painting clay slip onto pieces of paper towel, layering them, applying pigment and then firing them at 1280 degrees, Park creates a masslike trompe l’oeil. The resulting objects not only mimic the appearance of wood, they’re also strong enough to withstand typical woodworking tools, like an electric sander or a Dremel, which allows Park to create the container-like pieces shown here. In some of the work, Park mixes his layered amalgams with wheel-thrown vessels, for a more refined effect, but we’re partial to the originals, which bind as many as 1,000 sheets together and can take up to three days to create. Park is currently working on his PhD in ceramics — we can’t wait to see what he comes up with next.