Russian collage artist Philipp Igumnov doctors old photographs to make them look like documentation of supernatural occurrences. An enormous cumulous cloud with doors and windows becomes a celestial residence; a woman holds up her palm to reveal a swarm of miniature UFOs; a soccer goalie dives to catch a speeding comet. Igumnov seems to enjoy messing with the idea of photography as a truth-telling medium and manipulates it to indulge his viewers' curiosity about aliens, ghosts, and the like.
Russian collage artist Philipp Igumnov doctors old photographs to make them look like documentation of supernatural occurrences. An enormous cumulous cloud with doors and windows becomes a celestial residence; a woman holds up her palm to reveal a swarm of miniature UFOs; a soccer goalie dives to catch a speeding comet. Igumnov seems to enjoy messing with the idea of photography as a truth-telling medium and manipulates it to indulge his viewers’ curiosity about aliens, ghosts, and the like.
Alexis Anne Mackenzie’s handcut collages of found images and pages from vintage books in her latest body of work. By taking pictures like scenic backdrops and splitting them with photos of women and other figures, Mackenzie creates stirring, moody works on paper. The work can be at once empowering and seemingly treacherous for those depicted. Works like "Closer to the Sun," above, combine like objects, creates a synthesis between the beauty of flight and womanhood. The body of work is part of the show "Never Odd or Even" at Eleanor Harwood Gallery in San Francisco.
Kenyan-born, Brooklyn-based artist Wangechi Mutu's collages ebb and flow with beauty and horror. She cobbles together images of monstrous temptresses from sources as disparate as original paintings, found objects, wildlife photography, and even porn. These seductive yet tortured characters, according to the artist, are meant to illuminate the ugly effects the legacy of colonialism has had on society's view of black, female bodies in particular. Her women hide in fields and swamps, seeming to flee from an unwelcoming civilization.
The collages of Andrew Blucha, who works under the moniker “metafables,” crafts fantastical and dark-surrealist illustrations. The London artist’s motifs include skeletal, mystical blazes, and Victorian fashion. Contained within these are also contemporary winks.
San Francisco-based visual artist Nicholas Bohac contemplates "the big picture" in his immersive, mixed media works that feature celestial figures amidst dreamlike landscapes. In his artist statement, Bohac writes that his purpose is "to question the universe and where, exactly, people fit into it… Through my work, I aim to explore the overall phenomenon of what it means to be human, past, present and future."
