Under the Influence - Christopher Mckenney (https://www.christophermckenneyart.com/surrealism)
For this project I decided to choose someone who I had looked into as inspiration for my honors thesis project. Ultimately, the aesthetic wasn’t right for my thesis, but is perfect for a compositing portfolio. Christopher Mckenney makes work in the horror genre using surrealist techniques. Not all of his work is compositing based; Mckenney also works in portraiture where there is more focus on cultivating an atmosphere through pose, outfit, and lighting. Some of his surrealist work also has less compositing, but the images I am most drawn to are his composited ones. Mckenney uses motifs of cloth covered people, oftentimes not including the full figure, but instead having the cloth draped on the ground or cover where the separation of body parts would be. From learning about compositing in photoshop this semester, I assume Mckenney takes several different photos of the same scene on a tripod. These different images would be of the scene empty, the figure, and whatever props are being used. There is a lot of masking, but it seems that it wouldn’t be difficult work as the sce
nes are heavily planned and well thought out through execution.
Most of the subjects in Mckenney’s work are either white males or females, often representing a eurocentric standard of beauty (beneath the makeup, mask, or cloth). There seems to be two broad categories these figures fall under: figures that are meant to unsettle or disturb the viewer but are not “unsettled” or “disturbed” themselves and figures that are both unsettled/unsettling. The second category of figures is what I am most drawn to in Mckenney’s work.
Conceptually, Mckenney plays into a lot of horror motifs about ghosts, death, and spirits. The figure can be seen stripped of their own identity, whether that is through a mask or sheet or mirror, and the focus falls on the elements of the scene itself. How much of a person do we see before the sheet becomes the only thing? Where is this ghost coming from? Why are we in an isolated forest or field? A lot of his work seems quite open ended for the viewer to then work out on their own and derive meaning from. What we are presented with is this idea of suffocating, where the sheet figure has the sheet entirely covering the inside of their mouth for the viewer to see. It mimics someone being suffocated inside of a plastic bag. This might lead the viewer to question what is suffocating about this? What sort of connotations does this have? Fire is also a repeating motif, as is water, adding more complexity to the idea of suffocation, because now we’re also burning or drowning. The last motif I want to draw attention to is from the images with American flag imagery. Mckenney is questioning patriotism and nationalism and how it fits into an American horror show.
For my project, I want to draw on the loss of identity, mirror and sheet visual motifs, and confrontation of American identity.
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