Phenomenal Shadowboxes Like You’ve Never Seen Before

Harikrishnan Panicker and Deepti Nair, known as Hari & Deepti, create intricately detailed dioramas out of watercolor paper that are simply out of this world. Inspired by Balinese shadow puppets, the Colorado-based artists began experimenting with shadow boxes in 2010 and have since adopted a more complex yet minimalist style. Working from the foreground to the back, each layer of the diorama is precisely cut to ensure that none of it is concealed by the layer before it. Each masterpiece is then placed in a shadowbox set aglow with small flexible LED strips which adds an ambient luminosity to the finished product. The result is a contained imagery of mystery and imagination triggered only by a flip of a switch.

Check out Hari & Deepti’s behind the scenes video of the making of ‘Rise and Skate’ for the window display at the AIGA National Center in New York below.