About the work
(version: January 11, 2023)DRAWINGS
Early 2020, I started drawing again, after not having done that for more than a decade, and not this seriously since my childhood/adolescence, when I hardly did anything else.
I draw in a naturalistic style, capturing many details but also adding layers dealing with realities of existence beyond the obviously visible. They are expressed in colour, direction, gesture, texture, juxtaposition of elements.
My images are spiked with a promiscuous mix of style features, which often makes labeling them as such into a somewhat laughable exercise, merely justified by heightened findability.
I guess what I make is usually called 'outsider art'. Facing the world as it is evolving, in my current situation, this is my natural response. Some pieces are more about draftmanship, and in some I am the incredulously curious alien, attempting to process present day reality on Earth.
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PHOTOMANIPULATIONS
In the decade preceding my current adventure as a late-blooming draftsman, my medium has been a Mac with Wacom tablet and much maligned but truly magnificent Photoshop. Plus a high end printer (commercial art printer for large formats) to get physical output.
The endless array of possibilities one has while digitally manipulating pixels, combined with an intuitive approach, necessitates putting in place some 'stimulating restrictions'. Every work emerged from within one of the following thematic series:
PHOTOMONTAGES COLOR:
"ELEMENTS", a series of montages that feature earth, water, fire, air and ether. Seeing as these elements manifest in various ways/forms, representations of them in my work can either have a psychological meaning, or one that relates to a physical reality. (subseries: PODS, 12 variations on 1 theme)
"BEINGS", a series of works that deal with the various ways consciousness can manifest in our world. Drawn from personal experience, as well as representing collective 'macro'-phenomena, these works can be 'read' on several analog levels, that simultaneously present themselves.
"HYBRIDS" (or 'Hybrid Beings'), a series about the animal tail of our subconscious. Beings with a dual physical nature, feature in portraits that reflect or comment on what the hell humanity is up to now.
PHOTOMONTAGES BLACK & WHITE:
“LEGENDS”, a series in which antique photographs (from the first few decades of the last century) become reborn on a surreal, contemporary plane, where they comment upon the history that fills their lifespan (spent mostly hidden away in archives).
(sub-series: STRUCTURES, semi-abstract hypercollages with antique roots)
By using the conceptual boundaries of these series, I create spaces in which visual elements form relationships with each other, in a creative process that is different in each collage, and that unfolds largely with rational faculties pretty much entirely focussed on the technical side of image compositing (especially in the initial phase of the process). Each new, composite image represents both a specific perspective, and simultaneously multiple meanings in itself.
ORIGINALS and PRINTS
Original Drawings and Prints of both my drawings and my photo-based work can be purchased, and will be shipped worldwide, via Saatchi online:
www.saatchiart.com/axelsaffran
Follow me on Instagram:
www.instagram.com/axelsaffran