Two artists have created a portrait series of people who appear to have had cosmetic surgery.

However, the models’ nips and tucks are actually cut-outs from magazines.

Poking fun at the fashion industry, French artists Bruno Metra and Laurence Jeanson stick images of facial features, cut out from fashion magazines, over the models’ eyes, lips and noses to form new facial expressions.

The artists say that the project, called ID, shows how beauty is no longer natural but socially conditioned.

Professional photographer Bruno Metra, 45, said: ‘In the media we are bombarded by images of others.

‘Magazines, cinema and television keep creating and imposing codes that become social references.

‘What one must look like, how to wear make-up, what clothes to wear, how to behave.

Laurence and I are fascinated by the power of the media and how it influences people’s identities.

‘The act of representation has taken over what’s real; models erase themselves in order to gain another self.

‘Here we are portraying identities weakened by the diktat of appearance.’

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2303593/Can-read-face-Artists-distort-faces-magazine-pictures-create-bizarre-expressions.html]