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The New Contemporary Art Magazine
Photographer Jan Hoek collaborated with Ugandan-Kenyan fashion designer Bobbin Case on a project focused on the Boda Boda motor taxis roaming Nairobi. As the drivers crafted vibrant and accessorized bikes to stand out each other, the pair worked with a set of them to create attire to match. The result is the photo series “Boda Boda Madness.”
Artfucker’s recent body of work, displayed in the exhibition “Smoke Show,” meditates on just how accustomed viewers are to the omnipresence of marketing efforts. The New York artist’s practice is a blend of mixed-media and photography, with their identity still unknown to the public despite widely seen work.
In Kensuke Koike’s ongoing “Single Image Processing” series, the artist alters vintage photographs and postcards with both humorous and surreal results. With just a pair of scissors, the artist is able to remix and recontextualize imagery that is otherwise ordinary or nostalgia-fueled.
Photographing porcelain figures the moment they hit the ground, Martin Klimas injects a sense of motion and chaos into an otherwise stationary object. The artist has taken a similar approach to photographing a moment of impact with bullets zipping through vases. For the figures, Klimas says that “the porcelain statuette bursting into pieces isn't what really captures the attention; the fascination lies in the genesis of a dynamic figure that seems to stop/pause the time and make time visible itself.”
The work of Gerwyn Davies blends photography and sculpture, utilizing everyday objects to obscure the body and create surreal vignettes. In his "Alien" series, the artist's use of simplistic, geometric shapes offer an interplay between light and shadows against diverse backdrops. Elsewhere, in summer-themed series like “Heatwave” and "Sunny Boys," he manipulates inflatables to evoke sun-soaked decadence.
In Erika Zolli's "A Little Known Marble" series, she blends mediums by photographing monochromatic marble sculptures from Galleria d'Arte Moderna in Milan and digitally adding "the typical color of ancient sculptures,” fighting against any notion that the “classical world was devoid of color.”
Angelo Musco's textured work uses the photographed human body as its building blocks. The results are landscapes and structures literally teeming with life. Below, his studio offers a preview of his new project arriving this fall: “The Land of Scars,” a work that takes an even more personal and churning turn than previous series.
Photographer Henrik Isaksson Garnell “sculpts” his imagery with natural elements such as bones and plant matter, manmade objects, digital effects, and electronic ephemera. The result includes his new series “In Treatment,” a meditation on psychotherapy. The work moves between the cerebral and the surreal.
The aspects of William Mortensen’s photography that were controversial during his lifetime—clever manipulation of imagery and dark themes—are now considered to be marks of his greatness. In the show "Witches" at Buckland Museum of Witchcraft and Magick, Stephen Romano Gallery offers both unseen work and iconic meditations on the occult from his output in the 1920s and ’30s. The exhibition runs August 3 through November 3 at the venue in Cleveland, Ohio.
Kat Toronto, a.k.a. Miss Meatface, shows her stirring blend of performance art, photography, ceramics, zines, and more in a new exhibition at The Untitled Space in New York. The multidisciplinary artist, who was featured in Hi-Fructose Vol. 47, is offering work that the gallery says spans several years. The gallery says her works “explore cultural ideals of feminine beauty and the objectification of women in a feminist society by toying with the push and pull of dominance and submission, as well as the acts of revealing and concealing.” Her exhibitions runs through July 13.
Multidisciplinary artist Melissa Meier combines sculpture, photography, and other forms with surreal—and at times, visceral—results. Whether it's the wearable, egg-filled sculptures in her "Skin" series or the unsettling masks in "Glass-Eyes," Meier is able to create otherworldly looks tethered to the natural world.
Photographer Ben Zank crafts surreal portraits that are strange and at times, humorous. The subjects captured by New York City-based artist are often shown without faces, their visages disappearing into foliage or smoke, or otherwise, buried into the Earth. Instead of depending on the human face, Zank says that “the image itself is the emotion.”
Recent photography and costuming work by the duo Kahn & Selesnick chronicles the travels of Truppe Fledermaus, a cabaret troupe of “would-be mystics who catalogue their absurdist attempts to augur a future that seems increasingly in peril due to environmental pressures.” The “Book of Fate” works showcase the pair’s talents in both installation work and crafting narratives.
In Klaus Pichler's intimate and occasionally humorous series "Just the two of us," the photographer costume enthusiasts in their homes. And whether spending time as creatures alongside their own domestic creatures or having a morning coffee, each of the subjects create a surreal scene in their everyday environments.
Oleg Dou’s photo manipulations subvert the elegance of classical still-life or mutate the subjects of his quiet portraits. The award-winning artist, hailing from Russia, has shown these creations in shows across the globe. Recent work takes the everyday table settings of the Renaissance and stirs sexualized conversations.
Recycling packaging materials and other discardables, photographer Suzanne Jongmans crafts Renaissance-style portraits that examine contemporary consumption. The artist finds value in these otherwise overlooked materials; elsewhere, she piles clothes and finds beauty in unfinished garments.
In constructing her photographs, Jennifer Thoreson creates abstract objects and a curated space for her models to dwell. The result are works that are at once intimate and surreal, her crafted amorphous accessories extensions of the figures’ humanity. In the series “Testament,” the artist subverts everyday scenes with something darker and revealing.
In Niko Photographisme's "The Robot Next Door" series, the artist depicts a world in which robotic creatures are among us. Blending analog materials with a bit of digital manipulation to create a surreal final product, the artist is able to create an intimate view of a sci-fi scenario. Depicting the figures taking part in everyday activities, the pieces carry a surprising vulnerability to match the futuristic concept.
Photographer Christy Lee Rogers stages her work underwater, alluding to the vibrancy and elaborate elegance of the Baroque period. Her “Hybrids” series, in particular, blends the beauty of submerged human form, plantlife, and textiles. The artist has said that her work questions and finds "understanding in the craziness, tragedy, vulnerability, beauty and power of mankind."
Photographer Pelle Cass’s composite photographs use time-lapse techniques to create chaotic sporting events. The artist has said that part of the fun in creating each work is being able to subvert the typical athletic affair and put the crowds in the fields, not in the stands. The artist doesn't alter any of the settings in the work; he only takes out and adds in figures.
In the series “Ça va aller,” photographer Joana Choumali adds embroidery to images captured of her African hometown, Abidjan, in the days after the March 2016 Grand-Bassam terrorist attack that took 19 lives and injured 33. She began embroidering as a way to cope, with the series evolving from this approach. The artist observed a melancholic population following the event.
Romain Laurent's surreal photography mixes humor and disconcerting scenes, whether its his strange "Inner Dialogue" series or his subtly animated "One Loop Portraits." The artist has both personal and commercial practices. Laurent hails from France but is currently based in New York City.
Brooke DiDonato’s photographs put a strange touch on ordinary Western backdrops. The narratives, though vague, evoke intimacy in how it confronts its disappearing or despondent characters. In series like "Recess," "In Bloom," "Roses" and "A House is Not a Home," the artist is able to either inject fleeting beauty into undesirable places or extract surrealism out of the unassuming.
Photographer Davide Luciano's "Sheep Nation" series abandons the use of digital tricks and implements prosthetic make-up, meticulous lighting, and several models and crew members to create surreal scenes. Each of the mask applications took up to three hours to apply, and photos from the series move between stirring portraits and scenes from the everyday.
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:
In the La Merced neighborhood in San Cristóbal de las Casas in Chiapas, Mexico, costumed characters hit the streets to welcome the feast day of Our Lady of La Merced and reflect the sins of the wearer. In Diego Moreno’s photo series “Guardians of Memory,” he navigates this tradition in his old neighborhood and explores converging cultures by placing these monsters in domestic situations.
Alma Haser is known for adding surreal, sculptural twists to her portraits. One of her new series sees the photographer creating puzzles out of images of identical twins, then swapping every other the piece of the separate portraits for absorbing results. Haser didn’t know where facial features would end up in this process, offering a surprise to both the artist and the viewer. Haser was featured in Hi-Fructose Vol. 31.
San Francisco-raised artist Kat Toronto blends performance art and photography under the working name of Miss Meatface, using both vintage Polaroid and contemporary methods. The artist says part of her work stems in having been diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2010 and subsequently having to receive a full hysterectomy. Toronto now uses her moniker "as an artistic and spiritual catalyst to delve into a complex set of questions about where she fits into society as a woman."
Azuma Makoto’s known for his ambitious flower art, manipulating nature into something new, yet still maintaining its beauty. With the “In Bloom” project, he’s taken his sensibilities to space. Makoto’s been sending bouquets to space with specialized balloon vehicles and cameras. The result is something that combines the inherent exquisiteness of the Earth and its surrounding bodies.