Morwenna Masters
How has surrealism affected modern day narrative photographers and mixed media artists? Surrealism is a form of artwork that was created in the early 1920’s. Surrealism intertwines everyday objects to create “creatures”. The introduction of this art form meant that more artists could express themselves and tell a story through their creations. The artists that I have chosen to research and create pieces inspired by them are Vincent Bourilhon, Pejac, Alexandra Bellissimo and Eric Fortune. All of these artists all express themselves through their artwork using the theme of surrealism. But manage to present it in different styles and using different mediums, such as photography, paint or the use of 3D images. Narrative is another way of storytelling. It is a connection of different events all put into one. Surrealism has affected this by allowing modern day artists too express themselves by creating new and creative stories. The first artist that I looked at was Vincent Bourlihon. He is a 22 year old children and fine art photographer who lives and is based in Paris. To create his pieces bourlihon creates his artwork using a mixture of different photographs and intertwines them together to create a new image. All his work has a very distinct look to each of his creations, one way he presents this is through the colours that he has chosen to use. He uses dark colours throughout each of his pictures even though they all have a different style he still continues to use dark colours. The use of dark colours brings out a particular feel to his work. Dark colours are normally associated with winter which therefore brings out the theme of winter into his work. Also he has made the people in his images wear winter Midnight dream – Vincent Bourlihon clothing to continue to present this feel. However it is not entirely dark colours as he does incorporate lighter tones and colours into his work. By adding the lighter tones it has managed to lighten the image slightly and gradually make it darken into the background this has made it obvious what the main focus of the image is to the viewer. He has managed to contrast the colours used against each other well in order to add details into his creation, for example in the image shown called midnight dream, he has made the stars and moon in the jar lighter so that it can stand out against the rest of the image but not too much so that it starts to become segregated from the rest of the image. To prevent this from happening he has blended it well without it getting lost by adding a “glow” coming from the moon and stars like it normally does and using that “glow” as the lightening factor of the image. The introduction of surrealism has had an impact on Bourlihon as it has allowed him to be creative and explore further within his artwork. Before surrealism was introduced his style of work would not have been accepted by society as it is not truthful to how the world really is. Down to this introduction society has been accepting of different art forms. Another artist that I researched is a Spanish photographer and artist called Pejac. He also uses the theme of surrealism within his work like Bourlihon does, although he presents this in a different way from Bourlihon. He creates his work using a silhouette type images and placing them around streets, on buildings or on the ground however I decided to look at his work that he using windows as I really liked them and found them really unique and different. To create these he cut out a silhouette and stuck it to a window and captured it using a camera, but he managed to position it right on the window so that it looks like the silhouette is interacting with the outside. Even though
Morwenna Masters the silhouettes are doing “normal” activities he has managed to fit it in and angle it just right to look like it is correct and people can do what the silhouette that is incorporated in. For example in the image shown of one of his creations he has got a person standing on a lamp post with a fishing rod fishing for birds that are flying in the sky. Pejac has managed to make this type of image look like the everyday norms. Surrealism has contributed into this artists work as like Bourlihon it has allowed pejac Example of Pejac’s work to stretch his creative boundaries. He has been able to take a scene and add his only little stamp on it. Pejacs street art is similar to other street artist’s styles but I like how it he has made it to fit in well with the environment around the image. Each piece has a purpose to why he decided to do it. A few of his street art pieces portray the theme of issues with in today’s society which is what a few street artists’ use as a base for their pieces. However in my opinion I liked his window art so I decided that I would attempt my own window art which is inspired by him. The colours that Pejac has chosen to use are dark bold silhouettes and a light background set in the day time. This means that the dark silhouette can be seen against the background and can be incorporated with in what is going on outside without looking to harsh and segregated. If he had chosen to set it at night then it would be too dark to show up therefor it would just be a dark image that nothing can be recognised in the image and taken from it. The next artist that I analysed is Alexandra Bellissimo. She is an artist living and born in los Angeles in the USA, who is influenced by her own observations of different issues within society such as social, gender and psychological issues. She is a conceptual photographer this is a type of photography that is staged to represent and idea and if successful it is clear with in the final image. This artist says that she has been motivated into creating unique imagery and ‘making’ pictures instead of just ‘taking’ them. To create her pieces she likes to use collage type techniques which you can see with in her pieces which work really well with the images and style of her work. She doesn’t just use collaging in her work she also uses digital manipulation using computer editing to transform her images into something surreal and interesting to the viewer. Using her choice of collaging she has incorporated nature and a female together which presents My own interpretation of Bellissimo’s her interest in gender issues within society clearly. She uses the work. idea of surrealism as an influence and she has presented this by incorporating nature into the human body. She uses things like tree branches, birds and flowers coming out of different parts of their bodies in particular the mouth and eyes in the image of the female she has chosen or she will replace a particular part of the body with a form of nature another example of this is her piece where she has cut the image of a woman from just below her neck and then taken an image of tree roots and merged the two together the way she has done this looks so real but also freaky because of how real she has made this new ‘creature’ look. Similar to Pejac, Bellissmo has used silhouettes within her work however instead of people silhouettes interacting with our world. She has taken silhouettes of different forms of nature and incorporated it into the human body. Bellissmo has managed to create an dark and moody feel within her artwork as she has chosen to only use black, white and grey which are quite dull and boring colours however this works
Morwenna Masters to present the issues with in her work that she wants to tackle, because she has not used bright and bold colours which may take the attention away from the actual story behind the image using the darker colours will make the image seem more striking and interesting as there is not any colour to distract or draw the viewers eyes away from the main focus. Bellissmo has managed to bring out different emotions from her artwork to Bourlihon and Pejac. She brings seriousness out as she has chosen to use issues with in society to influence her designs. The final artist is Eric Fortune is an artist from Columbus, Ohio in America. Fortune creates emotionally complex metaphors through his work. He bases his ideas a lot on emotions and taking surrealism into account and creating this images that are taking subjects that we experience but exaggerating it through the use of surrealism. One off his pieces that I looked into is called empty kingdom. This is the image of a young boy looking at a house shaped hole inside of him. Fortune has made this image have a darkness with in this he has presented this through the colours he has used not in just this particular piece but throughout all his pieces. It brings out the darkness in certain situations just by the colours that he has chosen to use. They are dark musky colours such as browns and greys although similarly to Empty Kingdom by Eric Fortune. Bourlihon he also adds in some lighter shades in to add a focus within his art to bring attention to a particular part of his work. By doing this it makes us as viewers focus on the house in this image and wonder what it means. Is the child homeless? Is he from a broken home? Is his missing? However we all interpret what we think it is about differently as we do not know the complete story behind this image all we see is what we gather from the image. This artist has used surrealism to create this story of the child. Everyone interprets it differently from the introduction of surrealism it has allowed us to come up with our own story for this image. The artist has also managed to use it as a tool to present the issues that he wants to show in a different way using metaphors rather than just painting the issue accurately and as it is rather than adding some character and creativeness into it. Fortune has managed to incorporate emotions into this piece which also adds to the images story. By adding emotions within paintings it makes the viewer related and imagine the story the artist is telling. He does this in Empty Kingdom with the child. He adds the child’s emotions in this also makes it have this dark feel as we do not see the happy and joyful emotions instead we see a sad child trying to hold onto something that he is missing. All four off these artists use people with in their creations. By them doing this it adds to the story of the art as it gives a character to focus on. Even though it is done using different mediums. By artists adding people in it automatically no matter how different to the view gives them a connection to the art and what is going on. Another similarity that all the artist present, is the use of colour within their work. They all use colours as a tool to give their art pieces a main focus, whether it be darkening it against a light background or lightening it against the dark background, to make it ‘pop’ against the rest of the image and make the image flow together. From this theme I created my own piece inspired by surrealism and Alexandra Bellissmo. I chose to present this as a book cover as I thought that it would work really well as a book cover. This is because I chose to use branches and butterflies and I used these to spread across the front, back covers and the spine, which intertwines all covers together. I kept the design simple otherwise it would look too crowded and cluttered for a book cover design.
Morwenna Masters
My book cover designs
Overall surrealism has affected modern day artists as it has allowed them to stretch their creative boundaries when coming up with ideas. Before surrealism was introduced many artist would not have stories with in their work like modern day artists do. The art would just be truthful events of life and there would not be any made up ‘creatures’. Therefore the introduction of this art form has allowed the modern day artists and photographers be creative and explore different styles of working.