Adventures in Surrealism

I've always been inspired by the Surrealist art movement, so a year or so ago I set myself a project where I examined the works of famous artists more closely. Here is what I came up with!

These little ladies were antique dolls that I found in my local Antiques Village. I removed their heads and gave them both rabbit skulls instead. This gave them quite a creepy, meleancholy edge, which I really liked, so I played around with them a bit more.

The head peering out of the gas mask belonged to the doll on the right. I was really inspired by these little creations, as they reminded me very much of Jan Švankmajer's work, especially "Alice" his stop-motion version of Alice in Wonderland.

II loved these little dolls so much that I wanted to create a much bigger version, to see if it had the same effect. So I chose to make a life ssized human bust, with an enlarged dog skull head.

I built the bust around a mannequin and created layers of hessian fabric to make her solid. I wanted her to stand upright without having to be propped up. I made a skeleton out of wire for the dog skull, and then added layer upon layer of papre mache until it was strong enough. I then painted in the contours and used wax to polish it and make it look "boney."

I called her Daphne.

Here are the mages that I sketched and then projected over her during her photoshoot-

#art #photo #sculpture #surrealism #rabbit #skull #doll