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Alexander Jansson - Surreal Circus with Punk influences

In the work of Gothenburg, Sweden-based artist Alexander Jansson, we can observe the influence of a diversity of genres as distant as literature, cinema or painting itself.


Occasional animator (I recommend watching The Curious Kind by clicking HERE), and aesthetically reminiscent of Tim Burton. Like this short animated film, his digital work shows certain parallels.


These works are characterized by being characterized by misplaced and somewhat disconcerting beings. However, they gather the skills to finally end up finding each other, coinciding in space time in similar places.

In nebulous universes, in which after overcoming a thousand avatars they manage to feel comfortable in the presence of others. Who are sometimes visible and sometimes not, weaving their own destiny with dreams. 


The carnivalesque elements that he frequently employs, contribute to create a circus atmosphere, in which the range of taciturn and bohemian colors contribute to create compositions through which he conveys a sensation of intensity. Hypnotizing the observer, who is seduced and invited to explore each work in detail. 



Although he is mainly known for his commissions for covers and illustration of special editions. Works that over time he has also created his own creative identity as well as his own style that he called Greenpunk. 



The one that consists of applying a mixed technique formed by a collage to which he incorporates elements of his photos, models, drawings and paintings that he mixes in the same illustration. Almost handmade works with which she achieves digital images that stand out for being very natural, works that require a considerable investment of time. Completing them by adding scratches, dust and brushstrokes with which he enhances their formal finish in plastic terms.


READ IT IN SPANISH: Alexander Jansson - Circo surrealista con influencias Punk


Founder of his own studio called Sleeping House. Among his many works, the illustration of an anthology of works by Robert L. Stevenson, or the new edition of Anne E. Book of a biographical volume on the life of JRR Tolkien.

Caras Lonut - Surreal nature inspired by Poe

 

In many of the works of digital photographer Caras Lonut two constants are observed, on the one hand we see nature represented by different species, sometimes following a crude and stark pattern.


Wild animals that are treated as pets, almost always accompanied by children, in a journey where the dreamlike atmospheres describe a magical universe. In which nature is always omnipresent.


The other is his peculiar treatment of color, a nuance that he undoubtedly achieves thanks to the application of a variety of filters. With which he treats each image after the editing he does with photoshop (of which he is a consummate expert). 



With which he achieves that the final composition of each piece has such a tenuous effect that evokes autumn afternoons that transmit serenity and invite to meditation. And that can remind us of some of the passages of Edgar Alan Poe's stories.


His imagination and his work are captivated by dreams and by the autumn and winter seasons, through which he analyzes the darker side of a subject's desires and dreams.


Born in Romania in February 1970, Caras alternates his professional career, in which he has done commissions for numerous publications. With his love for digital photography.


READ IT IN SPANISH: Caras Lonut - Naturaleza surrealista inspirada por Poe   


In these environments he has used a language where surrealism shares space and discourse with elements taken from the natural universe. Representing landscapes in which the nostalgia for a childhood that will no longer return, is blurred between strokes inspired by the memory of the dream and its traces imprinted in the subconscious.


Alex Gross, The POP illusion of a cancelled future


Surrealism as an artistic current since its appearance coinciding with the dawn of the twentieth century, was already postulated as an expressive movement that transcended the purely aesthetic. Apart from having an evident connotation from its beginnings.


That linked it to a greater or lesser extent with the exploration of the unconscious, having therefore something more than a flirtation with the Vienna school and psychoanalysis, as a practice that in some way established the basis for describing the exploration of our oneiric universe. A nuance referred to by Andre Breton in his famous Surrealist Manifesto.  


It also had an interpretation or capacity so that many of the works could lend themselves to analysis or political-social readings, of which apart from their allegorical capacity. They became a chronicle of the episodes and events that we witnessed as individuals.



Describing with more or less fortune the patterns of behavior, that both in individual and collective terms we were acquiring. Opening highly suggestive debates in ethno-anthropological terms regarding our standards of behavior as human beings.


Within the prolific work of the artist Alex Gross, resident in the Californian city of Los Angeles, there is a tendency to apply this analytical approach. Exercise through which he makes us an inventory of an individualized society.


Based on the value of consumption and aesthetic values that atomizes the behavior of the individual, presenting him as a zombie illuminated by the religion of POP culture. Whose artistic component makes an appearance not only at the time of adding.


READ IT IN SPANISH: Alex Gross, La ilusión POP de un futuro cancelado 


Elements and objects belonging to the digital era, making continuous references to the increasingly pervasive technology and the excess of information. Transmitted in loop by the doctrine of the unique thought. Where temptation is represented by the head of the hydra that divides and multiplies, projecting from its eye sockets. 


Commercial brands alternate with icons of popular culture, and political figures that have marked an era, in compositions where surrealist, pop and figurative elements cohabit.

Mythological epic in the surreal world of artist Heidi Taillefer

 


There is something old-world in the work of Montreal artist Heidi Taillefer, an evocative and romantic air, her paintings featuring figures from ancient mythology, religion and history. They navigate between the classical and the figurative and her archetypal subjects. 


His preoccupation with technology and the way it is changing the perspective on human existence and the way we relate to each other. His subjects are chimerical manifestations that combine human and animal body parts.


To which she adds, light bulbs and antique objects, making them float with anticipatory tension in their environment. In the case of Heidi Taillefer, she fuses classical figurative painting with the most dreamlike surrealism, to which she adds elements of mythology and popular figurative traditions ranging from Victorian romanticism to science fiction. 


His work is in line with some of the surrealists of the twentieth century, such as Max Ernst and DeChirico. With this background he traces the profile of the human condition through different eras and cultures, building his own lens and language.


READ IT IN SPANISH: Épica mitológica en el mundo surrealista de la artista Heidi Taillefer 


This approach reflects the omnipresence of technological advances in the world and how their influence is increasingly present in more creative fields. Born in the Canadian city of Montreal, Heidi Taillefer began drawing at the age of three, raised in a wealthy family. 


She was fortunate to be brought up in a creative environment, where she was drawn to the strange and unusual. Fascinated by strange animal specimens. From the age of ten she took private art lessons, where she developed skills in watercolor painting. 


After earning a degree in humanistic studies from McGill University in the 1990s, Taillefer began making numerous trips to developing countries. Paying special attention to the most universal themes of the human condition, in the context of an increasingly volatile and globalized society.



Photographer Tommy Ignberg's high dreams explores the emotions of the subject

 


Realized in black and white, Tommy Ignberg's photographic compositions use the language of the most orthodox surrealism.  Through which he represents social automatisms, the desires and dreams that are really camouflaged inside us, emerging from the unconscious.


Although indebted to the most orthodox currents of surrealism of the early twentieth century like René Magritte, Tommy was born during the 80's in a town in the interior of Sweden called Nyköping, where he has lived except for short periods of time all his life.


A rootedness to landscapes that are transferred to his works, where he adds more contemporary narrative elements or pays tribute more or less explicitly to characters and figures. They are part of our collective imagination, being relatively easy to identify for practically all of us. 

 

It is this combination of elements, both those belonging to the territory in which he has grown up and where he has therefore spent much of his life, and the allusion to events starring relevant figures of our popular culture. The one that creates the combination in its right measure through which it manages to seduce us as spectators.


A beautiful small town located south of Stockholm, whose natural treasures became the ideal object that he photographed almost compulsively. Activity through which he educated his peculiar vision since his earliest childhood.


Regular activity that almost without realizing it, gave him, however, enough knowledge about the characteristics that should meet a photograph to approach it with optimal results. And that had not only a creative but also an artistic component, virtues that he has undoubtedly acquired in more than remarkable terms.


Experience that at first he acquired using as most professional photographers using an analog camera, to later move almost definitively to the side of those who use for their projects almost only digital equipment. 


PHOTOGRAPHY AS EMOTIONAL THERAPY

This technical change not only modified the approach I used to apply when undertaking a photographic work. But he could perceive this change when he was already in the studio, in front of the computer used as a post-production tool, retouching and editing each shot, something that contributed especially to his artistic result.


Moving from a photography in which the landscape dominated to surrealistic photographic montages enriched by other foreign elements that he had the opportunity to introduce. Creating more instropective works, whose script is based on our condition and human nature, as well as our emotional and intellectual manifestations.


READ IT IN SPANISH: Los sueños elevados del fotógrafo Tommy Ignberg explora las emociones del sujeto  


This change in his work method occurred five years ago during a series of complicated episodes that affected him deeply. Traumatic trigger that far from making him give up his passion for photography, caused him to start playing with some photoshop functions, creating surreal photographic montages that reflected the different states of mind he was going through.