Tanya Johnston

Back Wards (2009)

“Just look at us. Everything is backwards; everything is upside down. Doctors destory health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the major media destroy information and religions destroy spirituality.” –  Michael Ellner

Self Transcendence (2009)

One Consciousness  (2009)

“Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.” – Carl Jung

Landscape of the Mind (2010)

“That which is created by mind, is more real than matter.” – Charles Baudelaire

Brainscape (2009)   Background photo: Neil Banas

Lapis Angularis (2010)

“We have art in order not to die of the truth.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

Homo Evolutis (2009)

Sculpture photography courtesy of cliff1066.   Left: Iron by Antony Gormley, 2000.  Right: Bronze by Hanneke Beaumont.

[re]-surfacing (2009)

Artist’s Website

Artist’s  Flickr

All images from Tanya Johnston’s Website and Flickr. The quotes are those selected by the artist to accompany some of her images.

via escapeintolife.com

Ruud Van Empel | Escape Into Life

World #25 (2007)  Cibachrome 118.1 x 39.4 inches

World #30 (2008)  Cibachrome 33 x 47 inches

World #13 (2006)  Cibachrome 33 x 36.5 inches

World Series- Boy & Girl  (2008) Cibachrome 67 x 95 inches

World #24 (2006)  Cibachrome 11.5 x 16.8 inches

World #27 (2008)  Cibachrome 33 x 47 inches

World #31 (2008)  Cibachrome 23,5 x 33 inches

About the Artist

Van Empel’s working method is a complex one. He photographs 4 or 5 professional models in his studio, and takes many series of detailed photos of leaves, flowers, plants and animals. Having gathered hundreds of pictures in a database, he selects those images with which he can achieve the best results. The models are mixed in the Photoshop program, clothes are photographed separately on a tailor’s dummy. In this way he creates new images of mainly children, black or white, set in a paradisaical environment.

The art historian Jan Baptist Bedaux wrote in the catalogue (2006) of Museum Het Valkhof:

“The fact that many of the children in his compositions have a dark skin is a facet that cannot remain without comment. Although it is self-evident that a child’s skin colour is not important, the iconography of the innocent child was traditionally represented by ‘white’ children. The earliest examples of this date from the early seventeenth century. These are portraits in which children are captured in an idealized, pastoral setting. It is a genre to which the children’s portraits of the German artist Otto Dix, a source of inspiration to van Empel, refer.

In deviating from the standard iconography by giving the child a dark skin, Van Empel inadvertently assumes a political stance. After all, this child is still the focus of discrimination and its innocence is not recognized by everyone as being self-evident.” Read More on Wikipedia

Artist’s Website

via escapeintolife.com