Under the Influence Blog Post
Artist: Luis Dourado
The artist I have chosen for my under the influence blog post is Luis Dourado. Luis Dourado is a Portuguese illustrator and visual artist known for his surreal, sci-fi-inspired photo collages. His work feels like a one-man assault on realism, transforming everyday portraits and landscapes into strange, otherworldly images. He blends photography, collage, and digital manipulation to explore themes of memory, perception, and identity. Many of his pieces feature obscured faces, layered textures, and symmetrical compositions that distort reality just enough to feel dreamlike. His art often captures a tension between the familiar and the fantastical, like a memory that feels real but looks slightly altered in your mind.
Dourado’s style relies on muted tones, geometric fragments, and bursts of bright, almost cosmic color. He often uses symmetry, repetition, and soft gradients to create balanced yet unsettling compositions. The result is a sense of both order and distortion, as if the viewer is caught in a glitch between two worlds. His use of Photoshop and compositing techniques; such as layer masking, blending modes, and texture overlays—allows him to merge photographs seamlessly while still leaving hints of manipulation. The mix of analog imagery and digital editing gives his pieces a handmade feel, even though they exist entirely in the digital space.
For my project, I want to take inspiration from Dourado’s surreal compositing style and apply it to my own experiences traveling and studying abroad in Lyon, France. I plan to combine my own photos of the city with overlays of text, patterns, or symbolic elements that represent memory and translation. Like Dourado, I want to create something that feels slightly detached from reality. Less like a travel photo and more like a dream or recollection. By experimenting with subtle distortions, mirrored imagery, and layered color effects, I hope to build a piece that reflects how travel changes the way we see familiar places, blending what’s real with what’s remembered.
Luis Dourado Website: https://luisdourado.studio/
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