Jerry Uelsmann

Jerry Uelsmann is traditional photographer from Detroit. In 1957 he earned his BFA from Rochester Institute of Technology. Three years later he earned his MS and MFA from Indiana University. The same year the photographer started teaching photography The University of Florida in Gainesville. This is where he currently resides with his artist wife, Maggie Taylor. 

Uelsmann had his first solo show at Museum of Modern Art in 1967. Soon after he received the Receives Guggenheim Fellowship. Uelsmann created his composite images using multiple negatives in the darkroom. Some of his images are the total work of many years photographs. He is a champion of photomontages. Although Uelsmann is interested in the digital revolution in art, he does not use it himself. He feels he can accomplish what he needs to in the darkroom. His wife, however, is a photoshop montage artist. 

All of Uelsmann’s images are in black and white. The images are surrealist landscapes. The landscapes look mystical. They have an other worldly appearance that make the viewer have an almost religious feeling. It hard to put into words how the images make you feel. I think each viewer needs to feel them for themselves. 

Nicole Evans and Pat Farrell: Surreal Door Installations

“We are inundated with news and information about man kinds negative impact on our natural surroundings this project promotes and recognizes our creative and beautiful touches in nature. How a child at the beach may creatively stack a series of rocks and leave them for the next beach comber to find. A hiker may pick a bouquet of wild flowers and leave them as a beautiful present for the next person on the path.” -from the artists website

The amazing surreal door installations are part of an art exhibition festival in Kings County, Nova Scotia. The art festival is called the Uncommon Common Art in Nova Scotia. It is an environmentally friendly, community project that is meant to explore nature. For the last few years the Nicole Evans and Pat Farrell have created different door installations. Each one is bright and looks surreal within its natural backdrop. It cries Photoshop, but is not a photo manipulation. The top image looks like it is impossible for the doors to be balanced in such a way. I want to see he other side to see what the support structure is. The installations are technically and aesthetically magical.

Leszek Kostuj

Leśny ratuje Księżyc V

Machina mistyczna

Leszek Kostuj is a Polish artist that graduated from Pedagogy and Art Department at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. He works in painting, drawing, and traditional and computer graphics. Most of his artwork is done in either acrylic or oil painting. 

Kostuj started off painting smaller more realistic drawings. He quickly moved on sureal images that border on abstraction. He states, “My art is in constant change, I am in search of the forms of artistic communication that would be optimal for me. When I begin to paint, it is quite frequent that I do not ponder over the final effect. Only when on the surface of the painting, the emerging patches, lines, colours begin to coalesce, the imagination rouses and provides an impulse to further artistic release. At this stage of creation, what begins to appear is ideas, visions, and concepts – all in order to create a work that is a fulfillment of my artistic and aesthetic needs.”

The first thing that grabs my attention about Kostuj’s art is the vivd colors he uses. They put the viewer in the right mood to explore the painting. For example in the top painting the blues make it look like a dreamy night, so it makes it all right to explore the image, even though the top bird like creature may be sitting on a pile of skulls. The dreaminess of it leads the viewer to believe that this world id not real and they make wake up if they discover anything truly terrible. The colors of the bottom image lends a cohesiveness to the piece that makes viewing a pleasing experience. That can make the viewer notice more subtle things like the hidden face or symmetry of the piece.  

Paintings by Kostuj have a magical, storybook feel. They look like they should be in a book bringing children to another world in pictures. Like most surreal images I want to know more. It is what draws me to surreal artwork. The mysterious quality to the art. Never quite ever understanding the image completely. There may be a hidden meaning somewhere that you just aren’t getting. It is a creative and imaginative area of the visual arts that being a little different okay. I like that.

Michael Ticcino: Photo-Surreal Series

Tendrils of Time

This Section of the Road Proved Most Difficult for Franco

Michael Ticcino of Audubon, Pennsylvania has always worked as a commercial artist. As he has gotten older he decided to start working on some of his own work. He does surreal digital artwork, while also working on more realistic digital art of Valley Forge, PA. Taccino says, “My art has always been commercial, as I have been in Advertising my entire career. Now, as I mature, I feel the need to create for myself. I use a camera as one vehicle and a computer as another. The process varies. Sometimes it begins and ends with the camera and other times the camera is only the first step. I tend to think of the process as making an image or impression rather than photography. Although I love my camera it’s just a means to an end.”

Most of Ticcino’s artwork does not come from a purpose in mind. It stem from something he sees, and will see where the image takes him from there. He keeps his mind blank to let it be influenced by what he sees. If the image does not workout he puts it aside to look at later. Unfortunately, Ticcino does not travel much so uses some licensed images from other artists. The  artwork is done in black and white “because colour is not necessary in order for these pieces to be rewarding to me.” For these pieces the titles are very important. Taccino says, “The titles are very important because they complete the visual.  They are a large part of the viewing experience.  The image should never be displayed without its title.”

I am drawn to the drama of Taccino’s images. They are masterfully done to force the viewer to look exactly where the artist wants you to look. In This Section of the Road Proved Most Difficult for Franco I am forced to look at the back of the old man’s head and then directly above to the square in the sky. The funny thing is that my entire series will have squares in the sky, being sucked backward to show what could happen. Perhaps, that is why I really admire this piece. It is an interesting composition, with an even more interesting title. Tendrils of Time shows how a house has roots. A family lays down roots in a house, and it becomes a parts of them. I think it is amazingly beautiful, almost poetic.

Jonathan Andrew: World War II Bunkers

Cramond Island WW2 submarine defense boom

Military Casemate Type 623, West of Koudekerke, The Netherlands

Jonathan Andrew is a photographer from Manchester, United Kingdom. For the last twenty years he has called Amsterdam home. He is landscape photographer who does features for renowned magazines such as National Geographic. When he is on his own he likes to work on landscape photography while he travels. 

Andrew started documenting bunkers he came across in Europe. Drawn to the history of the bunkers, the artist decided to photograph them. He had free time, because of the down turn of the economy at that time. He photographed his subjects at dusk, so that the buildings would look less flat. Artificial lights were used like in a technique called light painting. The photographer would leave his lens open, while running around flashing lights on architectural features. He also likes to take winter photographs, because of the light and lack of weeds near the buildings.

I like that Andrews took the photographs at night. It gives the buildings a different look than viewers would normally see. The buildings look other worldly or futuristic. They look like modern buildings from a different time period. I also like the gray of the concrete with blue and purple of the sky. The colors work very well together. In some images graffiti is clearly visible. Instead of taking the shot from a graffiti free angle, Andrews embraced the graffiti as part of the story. 

This series is very much what I am interested in. What happened to these historical buildings? They were just left behind. What an important, yet horrifying part of history lying in waste. I am impressed that Andrews had the ambition to travel all across Europe to capture these landmarks on film for eternity. There is a story that still needs to be told with the buildings. I feel like what ever they have to tell isn’t done. 

Henrietta Harris

Your Tomorrow

The Greatest

Henrietta Harris is a New Zealand based artist that works in watercolors, gouache,  pencil, and waterproof pens. Harris does a mix of commercial illustration work, commissions, and her own projects. She was raised on a vineyard in Auckland, where she was shy and a little weird. In 2006, Harris graduated from Aukland University of Technology with a Bachelor of Fine Arts. She has done commercial work for Flying Nun Records, Amnesty International, Four Paws Media and Vice Magazine.

The illustrator works from photographs that she takes of her subjects, reference images from books, or the internet. She then may altar the images in Photoshop or use her scanner. All the paintings and drawings are done by hand. 

The series, Hold Still, is a collection of portraits that look like their faces are melting. Perhaps, they look more like they are on an old television that can’t get service, so the faces keep getting distorted. The faces in some images look like part of their brains are getting blown out from their heads. It is a creepy image, yet it is fascinating at the same time. It is a sort of fantasy world where the viewer is mixed between horrified and amazed at what is happening before their eyes. Hold Still is done in a range of pastels with the background being either bright or dark. This lends to the mood Harris is trying to create with each image. The illustrator claims that she does not want to explain to much of her paintings, because she does not want to give away the mystery of them. I think that is what I like about them, they are mysterious. I wonder about them later in the day, long after having looked at them. That is what makes this a great series.

Peter Lippmann: Paradise Parking

Peter Lippmann is best known for his work as a still life photographer. He has also worked with landscapes, animals and people. The photographer is well known in the advertising community. Lippmann has been published in Vogue, New York Times, and Marie Claire. His collaborations includes such famous brans as Flora, Nicolas Feuillatte Champagne, Minute Maid, Chianti, Downy, Wilkinson Sword. He was born in New York, but raised in New Jersey. Lippmann currently lives and works in Paris. 

I am in love with Lippmann’s new series Paradise Parking. The cars are all antique cars that have been completely over run by the nature that surrounds it. The vehicles look like they are being overcome, and may be deteriorating into the earth. It is a beautiful look at what happens when nature takes over man-made objects. 

After two months of asking, Lippmann finally gained access to a family estate. When he got to where the cars are it was infested with snakes. The photographer was also faced with his assistant getting lyme disease. It took Lippmann two years to complete the project.

In a perfect world I would have the time find a place like this and the ability to paint it justly. It is a perfect find for what I am interested in. However, I do not know of such a wonderful place. I will stick to my junkyards, unless a place like that comes to my attention.