To Look At The Ordinary From A New Perspective, I Make Surreal Photo Edits (30 New Pics)

Since a young age, I’ve had a fascination for all things art and illusionism. I enjoyed the dream world and magic shows, watching the ‘impossible become possible’. I loved being tricked by optical illusions, being made to ‘look twice’. I was also bewitched by the mechanism of taking a photo. For my child’s brain, it was wizardry! I eagerly photographed everything around me, to ‘collect’ memories of the world. I believe it is from this curiosity for the familiar and everyday life that my interest in creating photo manipulations was born. During my history of art studies, I learned about the Surrealist movement, from which I acquired a new way of ‘seeing’. I realized the possibilities that art offered for playing around and inventing stories. Suddenly, my photos did not satisfy me on their own anymore. They needed some kind of ‘intervention’, I wanted them to be ‘challenging’ for the eyes. I sought a way to combine my two passions – photography and surrealism – and the solution was digital collage.

A graphic designer friend of mine introduced Adobe Photoshop to me when I was in college. I fell in love with it straight away: finally, a way to merge my photos with my imagination! I’ve been self-teaching Photoshop for almost ten years now, and every day I learn new tricks. If you scroll down my Instagram feed, you will notice how my photo manipulation skills have evolved over time!

The creation process – merging the images on Photoshop and then retouching the colors on Lightroom – is relatively quick. Most of my photomontages take between 1 and 2 hours to put together. What takes time is to come up with new ideas, to ‘train’ my eyes to be able to find atypical connections between things that at first glance have nothing in common. That’s also what I mean by ‘making the ordinary extraordinary’. Everyday objects are so familiar that we tend to not think about them twice, we just use them for their function. It takes time and patience to find new purposes for the familiar, but the surprise on people’s faces is totally worth it!

I often have creative blocks. I guess it’s impossible to feel like creating all the time. I can’t really control when I’m going to feel inspired. I learnt from experience that inspiration comes in many forms. It comes by going about my everyday occupations, by experiencing life. If I don’t have a photomontage idea right now, it’s because I haven’t encountered the ‘thing’ that will spark my imagination yet.

I felt burnout when I used to work in offices, for other people. I felt stripped of my creativity and self. Being an artist means I am my own boss, manage my own time and make my own decisions. Of course, it’s not perfect all the time, I am very often too hard on myself and still have a lot to learn. I’m a work in progress, like everyone else.

I enjoy the challenge of taking all the photos myself. It’s tricky at times and it limits what I can use in my photomontages, but it is also very exciting and rewarding. I love the fact that I share a personal connection with each element of my compositions: I know the models (usually me or my boyfriend), have been to all the places, stroked the animals, ate the foods, played the instruments…

The aim of my work is to inspire, to offer a refreshing way of seeing the world we live in. Once I realized that art was going to be how I express myself, I started to look for the best ways to share my work with people. Instagram was a very quick and direct way to share my art with the world and get instant feedback. Plus, I get to discover and follow lots of amazing artists. We all support each other and share tips, it is a really wonderful digital community.

Do something unique, see the world with your own eyes. There are so many so-called ‘artists’ who merely copy the work of other artists. I know I’m not the only person doing photomontages, but I always make sure I come up with new concepts and I also differentiate myself by only using my own photos (lots of people use stock images). Let yourself be inspired by other artists (I most certainly do), but strive to bring your unique view of something, your own ‘ingredient’.