I recently read a
well crafted essay in Juxtapoz magazine on artist Odd Nerdrum. In it, Odd talked about how to command the helm of ones artistic path without fear; by traveling & immersing oneself in a foreign culture. This immersion is a metamorphosis: it changes you irrevocably, makes you realize you are only truly at home within the edges of your own skin. It is a powerful thing.
I first began to be truly inspired by the ideas and notions of surrealism when I journeyed to Paris for the first time. In the Pompidou I came across a re-creation of part of
Breton's studio as well as Hans Bellmer's infamous
doll (or at least a version of it.) Though I had certainly read some surrealist texts and already had my introduction to Breton's
Nadja, seeing these amazing artifacts in person truly set fire to my obsession with surrealism and all its nuances.
Above is Tim Walker's most recent editorial featuring strange bird Tilda Swinton in this month's
W magazine. The chosen location was
Las Pozas, a surrealist garden of sorts deep in Mexico built by surrealist collector and eccentric Edward James. Freckled amongst intense and wild greenery are odd architectural buildings paying homage to surrealist ideas & shapes, a physical garden of strange delights that seems perilous to journey to. Set against this strange, dangerous world is Tilda, who beneath the phantasmal eye of Walker blooms into a surrealist rose, seemingly conjured from the paintings of the movement.
how could i not fall in love ?
