Comparative Study

SURREALISM

For my surrealism assignment, I took a good chunk of inspiration from the photographer Hans Bellmer. The photo I included was one we observed in class earlier, and I recall thinking it was one of the creepiest things I’d seen that day, but in a pleasing way. A lot of Bellmer’s work seems to portray subjects that appear semi-human but more entity-like than anything. There were a few more photos I looked at that appeared to be of mangled dolls/mannequins with strange proportions. They definitely give you the feeling that a body part isn’t supposed to look a certain way, or that a body part is missing the rest of something that makes it look like something remotely normal… I really wanted to replicate faces that would somehow match up to the subject in the photo, so I focused more on manipulating the faces. I first thought about making mannequin-like subjects in front of a peculiar setting, but I picked up inspiration from old 1950’s PSA ads and magazines. There was something eerie to me about the models used in those ads, and the sometimes baffling captions on the photos. I eventually settled on making my subjects “droids” or abnormally human robots, and created a poster that made it seem like a promo for them and their functions to the public. The thing that classifies it as surrealism to me is the idea of such advanced looking robots being in such a vintage commercial. It just doesn’t belong, but the visuals make it seem like a completely non-bizarre thing from that time period.

LINDA MCCARTNEY