Surrealist Artist Project

 Part #1: (Biographies)

Salvador Dalí was born on May 11th, 1904 in Figueres, Spain. Dalí is famously known as a Spanish surrealist artist and was the icon of surrealism art. At a young age, Dalí would produce highly magnificent drawings. His parents immediately recognized his immense artistic talent and strongly encouraged Salvador to enter art school. Here, Dalí would go on to find success in his paintings. His most famous painting “The Persistence of Memory” would go on to become the very essence of surrealism art. During World War II, Dalí and his wife would move to the United States. Dalí became more productive than ever, producing more paintings and began adventuring into other creative interests. Unfornately, Dalí would pass away on January 23, 1989, due to heart failure. Today, Dalí’s is regarded as one of the best artists all over the world. He influenced millions of people with his surrealist paintings. 

Ronen Goldman is a surrealist photographer based in Tel Aviv, Israel. His work is known to convey stories and bring surrealism images to life. His collective work includes creating surreal, dream-like images into reality. His projects have been displayed on news outlets such as, CNN, The Huffington Post, and Daily Mail. Today, Ronen continues to make commercial photography for Ad agencies, magazines, brands, and other artists.

Part #2: (The Reviews)

Artist Review #1:

Artist’s Name Salvador Dalí

Title of Artwork: The Persistence of Memory

Date of Work: 1931

Description: In this painting, all of the objects (clocks, watches, etc) seem to be melting away. The isolated landscape provides a dream-like image, making it very surreal. 

Analysis: The melting clocks definitely seem to be the main focal point of this painting. The painting is asymmetrical, with the mountains to the right and single dead tree to the left. The bottom of the painting is dark, but has the painting keeps moving up, the brighter it becomes.

Interpretation: In my own interpretation, I believe that the melting clocks depict that our tie is slowly “melting” away. Salvador Dalí tries to communicate that time is indeed running out and that we should take full advantage of it, while we’re still here.

Judgment: In the aspect of success, I would say that this painting successfully captures the surrealism theme. Dalí uses the perfect colors and sets a specific tone to this painting. I feel that this painting illustrates the meaning very well

Artist Review #2:

Artist’s Name: Ronen Goldman

Title of Artwork: “The Surrealistic Pillow Project”

Date of Work: 2011

Description: In this photograph, Ronen drops a deck of cards and the wind seems to float them away in a spiral direction. This photo which was taken in the woods captures the objects (the figure and the cards) very well.

Analysis: This photograph is perfectly balanced! The main focal point would be the “Ronen Goldman” and the deck of cards. It is very much symmetrical and it uses the perfect amount of enhancements to make the image “pop”.

Interpretation: In my own interpretation, I believe that the photograph is trying to exhibit a mix of emotions (happiness and exhilaration). Ronen Goldman is trying to create a surrealistic photograph depicting one of his dreams into reality.

Judgment: Based on the attempt to successfully produce a surrealistic image, I’d have say that this photograph does essentially do just that. I feel that Ronen was very creative in recreating his dreams into a surrealist photograph. I do enjoy the idea behind the photograph very much!

Part #3 (Comparison):

After carefully reviewing both surrealist artists, it is clear that both respectively have different artist styles. In Dalí’s artwork, the painting keeps the integrity of surrealism with its unique features of deformity. In Goldman's photograph, the image seems to have a lot of planning behind it. Everything is very well thought out, including where certain objects should be. Both of these two artworks are nothing less than masterpieces, but it is very difficult to compare the two. Both artists lived almost a whole century apart from each other and each with their own values and ideologies. 

My Personal Surrealism Art:

Theme Selection: After careful consideration, I decided to use a self-portrait theme for my surreal photomontage. I want to use my hands, which acts as a filter to portray the two different sides of my personality. My hands symbolise my growth and the differences between the past me (2021) and the new me (2022) .This surreal photomontage represents me perfectly because I’ve grown immensely mentally and emotionally over the course of the year. It also represents my struggles from my past and how I’ve overcome them recently. 

Artist Theme: My final surreal image aligns very well with what I had previously planned. In my surreal post, I wanted to show the two sides of my life. I wanted to depict how far I've come this past year. The left side shows my old/past life and the right side shows my new/future life. The hands are slightly separated to show how the hand pieces still connect and how the past is still attached to the future. I simply overlayed the layers and converted them to black and white, to exemplify the dark tone behind the art. In terms of complexity, I went for more of a simplistic piece that would express my evergoing development as a person and as an artist.