Apr 30, 2013 | apropos//ts, art with
Are faces our identities? Are they what make us different, set us apart? If there are seven billion people alive right now, are there any with identical faces? Or do we embody the people who came before us, wearing the face of a great-grandmother or uncle instead of a new one we think is our very own? These artworks take away the faces, showing people but hiding what makes them identifiable. It makes each figure more universal but also leaves you with an eerie feeling, like they have something to hide for a reason.
Hover for descriptions!
1. Bernhard Handick, Fine
Feathers Make Fine
Birds (2012)
[zl_mate_code name=”Green Dynamic” label=”4″ count=”1″ who=”div” text=”Just a black shirt against white, there’s a neck and a hint of chin but his skin blends into the background and his face evaporates in an instant.
All that’s left is the long trunk of a man who’s quickly fading.”]
[/zl_mate_code] Source: razorshapes.tumblr.com
2. Thomas Devaux, Les Visages
et La Main
[zl_mate_code name=”Pink Dynamic” label=”1″ count=”1″ who=”div” text=”They looks like sisters, but the one turned away holds her hand to the other’s breast unapologetically. Their faces can be seen, but they’re smudged and the eyes are empty. The woman being touched leans her head back at an angle that’s only slightly crooked, and it’s creepy and mysterious, like she’s somehow disturbed.”]
[/zl_mate_code] Source: anitaleocadia.tumblr.com
3. Clare Elsaesser, So
Much (2013)
[zl_mate_code name=”Orange Dynamic” label=”3″ count=”1″ who=”div” text=”This girl’s nose peeks through so she has a face, but most of the rest of it is masked by flowers.
She stands against a pale blue background with her arms folded and doesn’t seem to notice the clusters of pink petals smothering her figure.”]
[/zl_mate_code] Source: this isn’t happiness
4. Delaney Allen, Hidden
Self (2012)
[zl_mate_code name=”Green Dynamic” label=”4″ count=”1″ who=”div” text=”A man standing in the sand faces us head on. We can see everything from his stylish leather shoes to his checkered button-down with the sleeves casually rolled up.
His face is the only part we can’t see – sand streaks across the frame and his head is lost in a cloud of white.”]
[/zl_mate_code] Source: likeafieldmouse.com
5. Faceless from The Nightmare
Factory
[zl_mate_code name=”Blue Dynamic” label=”2″ count=”1″ who=”div” text=”An archaic looking image in black and white, a man turns his face toward the light and it looks like someone took an eraser to the whole thing.
His face is washed out by the light completely, becoming nothing but empty space.”]
[/zl_mate_code] Source: thelinktoheaven.tumblr.com
6. Photography from Kyle
Thompson
[zl_mate_code name=”Pink Dynamic” label=”1″ count=”1″ who=”div” text=”In this conceptual photograph his face is covered by a long white sheet that spirals out towards the frame, lifting his body as the rest of him hangs straight down.”]
[/zl_mate_code] Source: beautiful decay
Apr 23, 2013 | apropos//ts, art with, photography
It might be the coolest superpower ever, and with photo editing software now it’s possible: people can fly. Only visually unfortunately, not physically, but seeing the image of a person flying makes it seem like it’s that much closer to possible. Maybe someday soon it will be, inventions these days are reaching new levels of amazing – we’re basically able to reconstruct working human limbs now so jetpacks can’t be too far off. But then there would have to be flying legislation and we wouldn’t actually get to use the jetpacks legally till the year 3000.
Hint: hover for descriptions!
1. Sky Fall by Evan Borges
[zl_mate_code name=”Pink Dynamic” label=”1″ count=”1″ who=”div” text=”More floating than flying, he glides eerily over the smooth top of the lake.
He’s in the exact center, and the sky’s clouds and colors are reflected in the lake below, the ripples transforming their shapes into a real kind of impressionism.”]
[/zl_mate_code]
Source: galito26.tumblr.com
2. Away to the Sky by Anka
Zhuravleva
[zl_mate_code name=”Orange Dynamic” label=”3″ count=”1″ who=”div” text=”Balloons lift a girl from her center, and she’s flying without realizing it; her head falls back and her body is limp in the middle of the sky.
The scene behind her is blurred and faded – not as real as the girl in the plaid skirt who looks like she’s just flown away from the party. “]
[/zl_mate_code]
Source: unplu66ed.tumblr.com
3. Untitled by Agnieszka
Sikorska
[zl_mate_code name=”Blue Dynamic” label=”2″ count=”1″ who=”div” text=”Flying is more like hovering here. A figure dressed all in black hangs a couple feet off the ground, her hair falling forward and tickling the leaves and the dirt.
She looks captive, hands held above her head and feet kicking back, speckled in dirt.”] 
[/zl_mate_code]
Source: whynotrishu.tumblr.com
4. Chairway to Heaven by Julia
Anna
[zl_mate_code name=”Green Dynamic” label=”4″ count=”1″ who=”div” text=”Against a fiery red sky, the girl plays a dangerous game of musical chairs, arms outstretched for balance even though she’s not afraid of falling.
She’s almost halfway to the chair at the other end of the sky.”] 
[/zl_mate_code]
Source: i-rene.tumblr.com
5. Leaving the Body by Hands
of Skill
[zl_mate_code name=”Orange Dynamic” label=”3″ count=”1″ who=”div” text=”A man levitates and leans forward, blindfolded and thrust forward by whatever’s in his hands.
A boy sits on the curb and stares up holding his head in his hand, watching the man fly past as if levitation were an ordinary thing.”]
[/zl_mate_code]
Source: myphotologbook.tumblr.com
6. The Journey by David Shauf
[zl_mate_code name=”Pink Dynamic” label=”1″ count=”1″ who=”div” text=”She doesn’t have wings but she still looks like a fairy, a girl flying over the sand in the sunlight with her back arched; the petals of her skirt dance in the wind.”]
[/zl_mate_code]
Source: insaneobsession28.tumblr.com
7. Floating Chair by Hannah
[zl_mate_code name=”Blue Dynamic” label=”2″ count=”1″ who=”div” text=”She sits in a wooden fold-up chair and both chair and girl fly a few feet above the ground, with tree branches stretching out like spiderwebs behind her.
She looks over the back of the chair and down, surprised at the magic she’s found in the woods.”]
[/zl_mate_code]
Source: tumblropenarts.tumblr.com
8. Head in the Clouds by
Stefano Galeotti
[zl_mate_code name=”Green Dynamic” label=”4″ count=”1″ who=”div” text=”Thick wooly clouds hide the girl’s head, but her body stick out of the fluffy ceiling like a stick stuck in the dirt.
Her body’s set against the corner of a room, the line of the wall running down behind her.”]
[/zl_mate_code]
Source: unplu66ed.tumblr.com
Apr 3, 2013 | photography
Girls balance on chairs in impossible ways, their limbs lifted and poised far above ground but they still don’t fall. They’re frozen in place by photo manipulation, caught in time between the leap and the fall, between sky and land. Their bodies defy gravity and anything else that might try to keep them grounded, their soft ivory skin against a dull brown textured background as they float like angels before us.
The girl below holds her hand to her mouth and looks out at us embarrassed, as if she’s just rung the bell she holds when she knew she wasn’t supposed to. Her peach dress wraps around her like a tube, letting her legs poke out like two long sticks that bend and extend and keep her in the air.
Most of the girls are left unclothed, their bodies long and skinny, stretched out like taffy across the chairs and space. That simple brown wooden chair and the gold bell are the only two props that make appearances, besides the occasional peach dress that both covers and reveals. The chair props up each girl in different ways as she seems to float above it, and the bell weighs her down with an invisible noise, its shiny gold surface against all the browns and ivories that surround it.
Bodrunova explains that many of her photographs “defy conventional physics and show her subjects as weightless objects with an ability to transcend space and time.”
“Sometimes we change the space around us to fit our ideas and sometimes space, place, or time dictates their rules. We can fight or we can embrace, the choice is ours.”
Katerina Bodrunova is a self taught 28-year-old Russian photographer whose works have been shown all over Moscow and London, along with every other big city in Europe since she first began her professional career in 2009. Since then she’s been featured in magazines from Seoul to Pittsburg, and you can also find her works on Saatchi Online.
See more of Katerina Bodrunova’s work on her website and her Flickr.
Mar 27, 2013 | photography
A naked man stands before an empty gray background, shown only from the waist up, but parts of him are missing – whole sections of his arms and stomach and head are edited out. But instead of seeing bones and blood inside, there’s just a gaping clean-cut hole, and you can even see the same skin within him, as if we’re all just empty skin vessels filled with soul.
In the image below, the faceless man seems aware of his missing parts, looking down and reaching through the hole in his stomach with hands crisscrossed and fingers elegantly outstretched, feeling for something that isn’t there. His spine’s notches rise up at his shoulders, creeping to his neck.
A warm light shines luminescent against his skin, almost white in some places, blinding but not quite. In the image below, the man doesn’t seem to realize his head’s upper half is missing, which could have something to do with the fact that his eyes are gone too. Cut right at where his mouth opens, his lower lip remains above a cavity of empty head – a basin of smooth dented skin with arms stretching behind it, as if his head were still there to lean on.
Defragmentados means “defragmented” in Spanish, which according to Google:
This man’s emptiness, without any sort of interior flesh, somehow makes him seem less human, and more like a virtual recreation that’s intended to do away with all the messiness we real humans have inside us.
Yago Partal is a 29-year-old Spanish artist doing editorial work for the special effects company DDT Efectos Especiales, which actually sounds like the greatest job ever. DDT won an Oscar for their work in Pan’s Labyrinth, and Partal uses his photography and photo manipulation skills to perfect their special effect designs.
Partal’s website is filled with conceptual photography like this – his Zoo Portraits series features exotic animals in suits and ties and is almost too adorable.
For more conceptual photography from Yago Partal, check out his website.
