Spanish photographer AnaHell crafts disconcerting and absurd photos that play with the human form, using various parts of the body as the canvas to create cartoonish characters. The ongoing project Secret Friends mixes the surreal with a documentary-style approach to capturing spots across the world. Using conventions of travel photography, AnaHell sets out to subvert expectations by “quite literally bending reality and creating a new dimension in the midst of ordinary situations.”
As she says on her website: “As a study in art and photography I aim to find a different point of view of normal situations, a little twist that changes everything. I’m fascinated by opposites, the rawness of reality vs the absurdity of it all.”
Another project, “Alter Ego,” takes a simpler approach to distorting the body, with characters created from upside-down faces. There aren’t many elements at play in these photos, yet AnaHell is able to entertain and absorb with well-placed eyes on each of the creations. The artist’s background in illustration is shown in each of the works, in which precision in placement push each image into hilarious territory. Secret Friends travels between Berlin, Cuba, Madrid, and several other spots, bringing AnaHell’s absurd sensibility to global lengths.
