It’s All A Bit Surreal…
As so often happens, you find an image online or in a book, which gets you thinking about other creators of images… then you start thinking about their influences and all of a sudden you are completely bogged down in really exciting artists!
Nicholas Scarpinato
We found this interesting image and discovered it was photographed by the 21-year-old film and photography student Nicholas Scarpinato. He is obviously talented and has a really good eye; I think he will go a long way especially as one of his interests is fashion photography. His style will definitely lend itself to that medium, although to me there is a lack of maturity in what he is doing somehow, or maybe it’s the fact that he can use Photoshop… I don’t know, to me there is a slight lack of depth to what he does, but as art is subjective that is only my own opinion!
His pictures remind me of Salvador Dali and Philippe Halsman, Angus McBean (below is one of Angus McBean’s individual Christmas cards that he sent to his friends every year, every year being a different surreal setting of himself) Bill Brandt, and of course Man Ray.
Angus McBean
There were a lot of surrealist photographers born around the 1900’s, including a few women like Germaine Krull, Dora Kallmus and Denise Bellon. Their work is all quite strange and when you think that none of the technology that we take for granted today existed, the photographs are an amazing feat in technique.
Germaine Krull
There is a strange nightmarish quality to a lot of the older surrealists work, and when you consider the politics and history that was unfolding at the time it’s not really surprising. It’s an interesting subject and I urge you to check out a few surrealist photographers yourselves – it’s an interesting art form that spills into other forms like Jake and Dinos Chapman’s sculpture.
Jake and Dinos Chapman
All the surrealist photographers and artists that I have mentioned have a whole body of work behind them and although I have criticised Nicholas’s work it’s important to remember how young he is. It’s clear he is very talented and I think he’s one to watch!
