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The New Contemporary Art Magazine
Jason DeMarte, an artist/photographer based in Michigan, combines images of artificial flora and fauna and processed food (and other commercial products) to create a new depiction of the natural world in the series “Confected.” Even in the tranquility of each image, the scenes reflect the dissonance inherent in the contemporary experience. The artist says he uses “completely unnatural elements to speak metaphorically and symbolically of our mental separation from what is ‘real,’ and compare and contrast this with the consumer world we surround ourselves with as a consequence.” Follow the artist on Instagram here.
Nicole Rifkin, a Brooklyn-based artist who specializes in digital illustration, offers nostalgic, brightly hued narratives in her pieces. Rifkin, who does editorial work for The New Yorker and Medium and founded of the art magazine Ipsum, creates scenes that obscure faces and figures, rendering pops of colorful abstraction against realism.
Montreal, Canada based visual artist Katherine Melançon brings a new energy to the classic still life in her trippy photographic works. Though her mesmerizing images may look it, they are not entirely digital; they are created using a variety of processes and techniques achieved with digital tools and camera-less photography such as photograms. As in her "Nature Morte" series, subjects like flowers, fruits, chicken, and other inanimate subjects are moved while she is scanning them, creating an ephemeral effect with smoky smudges. Images like these exist at a cross-section between traditional art making and a more contemporary practice that uses machines, as well as figurative and abstraction.