Monday 7 September 2009

Wayne Mitchelson












All images © Wayne Mitchelson

Congratulations to Wayne Mitchelson, July´s winner of theprintspace photography competition.

Writing about his project, here is a condensed version of what he is trying to do with his work:

"The 19th century German Romantic painters inspired me into my current and ongoing practice, particularly Casper David Friedrich. I was fascinated by his landscape paintings, the mood, light, compositional devices and the mystery surrounding each one. I initially started to create Friedrickesque images using photographs but 2 years on the influences from cinema directors including David Lynch, Ridly Scott and Roman Polanski, and in literature, Franz Kafka, J.G Ballard and Samuel Beckett have become more prevalent.

For example, in Kafka’s series of short observational writings called Meditations he writes about everyday situations but from a philosophical direction. In The Men Passing By, the inspiration for my Two Men Running, the narrator meditates on the vision of a man running down the street in the night. He imagines several scenarios involving the man and another man chasing him, leaving the reader to imagine these outcomes. This idea is now echoing Kafka’s musings and developing into One Frame Cinema images, a frame of an unmade film like the works of Gregory Crewdson."

Wayne Mitchelson was born in Leicestershire in 1972, growing up obsessed with fantasy and science fiction art of the 80s. Upon leaving school, he spent a while being a graphic designer until starting at De Montfort University in Leicester in 2005. After completing a foundation in Art and Design he progressed on to B.A Fine Art, graduating in 2009 with first class honours. He has work on display at the moment at The Ingenious Media offices in London and a solo exhibition at De Montfort Hall in Leicester.