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Can Pekdemir’s Eerie Digital Portraits of Mysterious Creatures

Though they're created digitally, Can Pekdemir's portraits mimic the high-contrast values of daguerreotypes. Pekdemir conjures up strange, furry creatures using 3D modeling software, giving them hefty forms and believable textures. The results look as if these characters walked into the artist's studio and posed for the camera. Presented as framed, archival prints, his pieces could pass for photographs. Pekdemir seems to be testing the boundaries between two and three dimensions, virtual and physical. We often take photography to be a truth-telling medium, but Pekdemir exploits this assumption to engage his viewers with these fictional personalities. Take a look at some of his recent work below.

Though they’re created digitally, Can Pekdemir’s portraits mimic the high-contrast values of daguerreotypes. Pekdemir conjures up strange, furry creatures using 3D modeling software, giving them hefty forms and believable textures. The results look as if these characters walked into the artist’s studio and posed for the camera. Presented as framed, archival prints, his pieces could pass for photographs. Pekdemir seems to be testing the boundaries between two and three dimensions, virtual and physical. We often take photography to be a truth-telling medium, but Pekdemir exploits this assumption to engage his viewers with these fictional personalities. Take a look at some of his recent work below.

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Mike Campau’s ‘Anti-Social’ Series Looks at Digital Platforms

Artist Mike Campau combines photography and digital techniques for his “Antisocial” series, a project that takes a pointed look at digital platforms we use to communicate. For much of the work, there’s a cynical beauty in the details, with letter boards reflecting our frivolous behavior and dependency on social media. In a statement, he offers some insight into the series:

Debbie Han’s Photographs Bring Neoclassical Beauties to Life

Korean-American multimedia artist Debbie Han tackles the standard of beauty in her photographs of Neoclassical women. Using photographic manipulation, she combines Greek sculpture with her own subjects to make this parallel. The resulting images bring to life familiar figures to any museum-goer, but bubbling with their own personalities and a special bond, like close girlfriends. Han's work not only makes us think twice about the perception of beauty, but also explores issues of race, culture and identity.

Albarrán Cabrera: Two Lenses, An Entire Universe

The name “Albarrán Cabrera” is a moniker for the Spanish duo Anna Cabrera and Angel Albarran. The photographers have produced work together for the past two decades, showcasing across the world and tackling new challenges and techniques together under one name. And for each new theme, the duo finds away to show each’s singular vision within a broader idea.

Alessandro Ripane’s Humorously Grotesque Illustrations

All that should look solid melts right off in the compositions of Alessandro Ripane. Many of his characters have a mass of dripping liquid with plants protruding in all directions in lieu of real faces. Other figures sprout plants from their limbs while their gleaming white bones peek through. Yet these morbid compositions manage to keep a whimsical twist; in some, giant pink ice cream cones drip heavily. Genoa-born Ripane remembers collecting comic books and volumes on wild animals, a habit that definitely informs his strange imagery. Each vignette gives the sensation that the viewer is walking in on the strange characters. A couple cuddling becomes a strange mass of plants, melting parts and mangled flesh. But not all is lost: Ripane makes sure to let one of the figures keep his socks and shoes on. Part Surrealism, part satire and all visceral, Ripane's works leave few parts intact but offer plenty of visual gems.
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