What do you get when art meets math and computer programming? If you’re Ani Abakumova, what you get are stunning replicas of art historical masterpieces or replicas of animals portraits made from thread. The 33-year-old Russian artist developed the technique in conjunction with her husband, Andrey Abakumova, a talented mathematician who uses an algorithm to generate patterns for recreating printed or painted images in this unique medium.

The effect is remarkable. Black, white, yellow, red, and green threads, crisscrossing over one another and winding around nails hammered around the edge of a circular plywood board, somehow come together to form a realistic portrait. Each piece takes hours to make, the string passing cross the piece as many as 8,000 times in order to create the final image.