Pareidolia.

These wax sculptures are casts of a male face done by first making covering the face with cling film (Leaving breathing holes of course) before making a modrock cast over this. With the modrock cast which was lined with a new sheet of cling film which had no holes in, I coated the inside with melting wax, building it up untill it made thicker forms. 

Once removing the wax casts and peeling away the cling film I was left with these abstract face sculptures. The cling film smooths out any features leaving only the contours of the face. This was the affect I wanted to create as I wanted them to represent the phenomena of Pareidolia which leads to us to see faces in objects. 

"Pareidolia is a type of illusion or misconception involving a vague or obscure stimulus being perceived as something clear and distinct. [...]

 Under ordinary circumstances, pareidolia provides a psychological explanation for many delusions based upon sense perception. For example, it explains many UFO sightings, as well as the hearing of sinister messages on records played backwards. [...]

Under clinical circumstances, some psychologists encourage pareidolia as a means to understanding a patient, e.g., the Rorschach ink blot test.

Astronomer Carl Sagan claimed that the human tendency to see faces in tortillas, clouds, cinnamon buns, and the like is an evolutionary trait. He writes:  

As soon as the infant can see, it recognizes faces, and we now know that this skill is hardwired in our brains. Those infants who a million years ago were unable to recognize a face smiled back less, were less likely to win the hearts of their parents, and less likely to prosper. These days, nearly every infant is quick to identify a human face, and to respond with a goony grin." (Sagan 1995: 45)."

This is another example of the complex workings of the mind and it's ability to make connections and thoughts within the mind. Furthermore these wax sculptures lead to the idea of how the brain manufactures images in the mind known as our imagination.