The artist that I was influenced by was Henry Flores. Within his work he does a lot of masking and combining textures with photography, which is what I incorporated within my images. I based my textures on the clothing I was wearing in my images and tried to incorporate the colors to help tie the shapes together. I also tried to incorporate flowers and the texture from the pedals.
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The artist’s work I have chosen to discuss today is Jeff Kepler. Kepler, from Portland, Oregon, uses his skills in photography, photoshop, and digital compositing to create extremely real visuals with attention to the smallest of details. Kepler’s compositing work seems to feature imaginative, and surreal themes that evoke a strong sense of nostalgia and wonder. In “Never Leave Andy's Room”, he recreates a familiar childhood scene with an unexpected twist, while properly blending realistic textures and lighting with digitally animated characters. Similarly, in “The Nightmare Before Christmas” and “Pool Day,” he merges familiar elements from pop culture with a unique, dream-like quality, combining intricate details with moody atmospheres. His use of lighting, shadows, and scale emphasize the exact tone needed for these compositions to stand out.
Kepler’s work is notable for its ability to straddle realism and surrealism. By carefully combining photographic textures with digital illustrations, he grounds these fantasy scenes in reality, making them believable while also knowingly composited. In Pool Day, for instance, he uses reflections, depth of field, and vibrance to create a scene that feels vivid and almost tangible, as though a dream has been pulled into reality. These techniques make his scenes immersive and allow viewers to feel as though they’re stepping into the characters' worlds.
For my own project, I will draw inspiration from Kepler's techniques by carefully integrating real-world textures and lighting effects to create depth and a sense of trueness in my composition. I will use lighting to set a particular mood, emphasize contrast to highlight focal points, and try to apply texture overlays to blend the surreal with the realistic. I also appreciate his use of popular, animated characters and taking them out of their original setting.
Magdiel Lopez is a digital artist known for his exceptional work in digital compositing, where he blends various visual elements to create highly stylized, and surreal compositions. His work usually combines real-world photography with digitally created textures, patterns, and effects, seamlessly merging the that which he has imagined, with what is real. Lopez's ability to manipulate light, shadow, and color allows him to create very dynamic and colorful environments.
When it comes to elements, Lopez places a strong emphasis on contrast and texture. His use of lighting is noteworthy, as he often uses high contrast between light and shadow to create dramatic focal points and to guide the viewer’s eye through the composition. The layering of textures, from organic elements like clouds and water to more abstract, geometric forms, introduces a sense of depth and complexity to the work. Color plays a big role in his works too, he uses palettes that range from vibrant, saturated hues to muted, desaturated tones.
There is also a sense of isolation in his work, as his characters or figures often are showcased alone. I want to focus and experiment, similar to him, with using contrast and textures within this project. I think it would be fun to create dynamic and colorful environments using his approach.
I’ve admired Greiman’s work for a while now in the sense of both art and graphic design. What drew me to her work was how she altered photos and the digital aesthetic she employs. Throughout multiple works such as posters and artwork for journals you can see that the subjects Greiman likes to focus on are biological. This includes humans, human body parts like hands, human anatomy, and animals such as birds and fish. However these biological subjects are edited in a way that feels technological. Along with these subjects she also uses type and geometric shapes frequently throughout her works.
Greiman employs techniques such as bitmaps, pixelization, and recoloring to add this effect. The text she uses can tie into both the biological or technological aspects of her work. Sometimes the added text is reminiscent of labels on a scientific diagram, and sometimes it is pixelated and resembles text on an early computer. This is partly due to the fact that Greiman is known as one of the first designers/artists to truly embrace the new tools created by computers such as the first Macintosh. So many of her designs were created on early computers.
Greimans work often focuses on the idea of experimentation in design. When computers were introduced into the graphic design field some people were hesitant about them, and didn’t want to learn a whole new system of tools. Greiman was different and embraced the change, creating timeless designs with the spirit of experimentation at their core.
In my works I want to employ the digital collage effect that Greimans work has by using similar filters and colors. I also want to use text in a similar way. Specifically employing the visual similarity to scientific diagrams I mentioned earlier. I plan to work with similar subjects as well and use either animals or humans as the main focal point in the composition.
https://mikhailray.art/march-14-russohatred
https://www.artlimited.net/27133/art/photography-salvador-dali-montage-retouching-people-character/en/485696
https://mikhailray.art/february-24-the-beginning
https://www.artlimited.net/27133/art/photography-storyteller-montage-retouching-people-character-anthropomorphism/en/508060
The artist I chose is Mikhail Ray Batrak who is a Ukrainian
artist that focuses on perception, surrealism, and empiricism in his work. Empiricism
in simple terms is the idea that learning/knowledge is developed from
experience, senses, and observation. In his work he perpetuates the idea that “the
beauty he was trying to capture was not intrinsic to the landscape, but subject
to his own perception”. He often refers to his art as “surrealism for the
digital age” and further stresses that “every surrealism is personal.”
His creative process starts with original digital photographs that he takes at various locations which he then manipulates in software combining various elements bringing to life a vision that he has in his mind. He takes on each stage of production from start to finish with his primary focus being on the final digital editing portion of each work. This final stage is where he explores personal perceptions of the world rather than following “socially-constructed” formulations. These final images, photocollages, and hybrid works are a reflection of his total commitment to the end result.
I wanted to find an artist that expanded on the idea of experiencing a composite. For this project and the final portfolio, I want to explore creating work that evokes an emotion, feeling, or experience. Art is highly subjective but can still be interpreted and bond with a viewer in some way. Finding relatability is one thing that many people can connect on, even if their perception differs.
Reference Sources:https://mikhailray.art/
https://www.artlimited.net/27133/biography/en/
https://www.artlimited.net/27133/galleries/portfolio/en/41757
Anwar Mostafa is an Egyptian digital artist, whose work has been exhibited in various international exhibitions and collections. Mostafa combines photography with a variety of textures and colors to highlight the emotions of humans in their relationship with nature. His fusion of reality with an imaginative setting through photo manipulation results in breathtaking, surreal portraits that are filled with life. This juxtaposition seamlessly blends the fantastical with the real making it difficult to decipher. As a result of this experimentation these photos are brought to life with a whole new perspective.
For most of his portraits, he has the portrait of a single figure centered within the composition in front of a blank background, highlighting specific features of their face. The dramatic lighting and the slightly shallow depth of field on the subject further emphasizes them. His compositions are often filled with contrasting hues, with vibrant neons set against muted earth tones or shadowy backdrops. The juxtaposition of textures, from smooth gradients to rough textures, creates a visual tension that draws the viewer in. The visual textures and natural elements that he uses consists of overlapping, distorted layers of water droplets and ripples, combined with colorful brushstrokes and blending layers. Which results in beautiful visuals of movement or peacefully static imagery.
I plan to expand more on these elements for my own work by involving more natural pieces into my composition. Experimenting more than just water or florals, by possibly including surreal environments into the background of my pieces or with the individual of the portrait themselves. While still playing into a similar composition, color scheme, and feeling the pieces give off.
