Anja Millen

German digital artist Anja Millen's work is disturbing, surreal and haunting.  She is definately not afraid to look into the darkness of the soul and human nature.  Anja's work is created via use of stock or her own photography (including self portraits) which she blends and manipulates to create imagery that conveys a strange and beautiful story, and often a subtext of pain and emotional turmoil.   

 

 

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Ellen Von Unwerth

German photographer, Ellen Von Unwerth has to be one of my all time favourites in her field. Her B&W photography is sublime, feminine, erotic, dark, provocative and playfully wicked. I do hope you enjoy my selection from her "Revenge" series. This perfectly describes her personality and the context of her work ~ "(Women) are not just there to be admired, they are there to be enjoyed."- Ellen Von Unwerth

By making her photographs less posed, Ellen Von Unwerth allows models to breathe, be themselves and ultimately feel sexier. The results are stunning and often stunningly sexual without exploiting or objectifying the models involved. For that, artists and admirers (i.e., any man with a pulse) owe Ellen Von Unwerth a multitude of thanks. They also need to thank her for launching the careers of modern beauties Claudia Schiffer, Estella Warren and Daniela Pestova among others. A glance through some of her raciest projects begs the question of whether Ellen Von Unwerth is as naughty as her photos. While she's something of an enigma, she does admit that some of her favorite photography sessions involve bondage and creating scenarios in which women dominate men. This goes back to her love of Bettie Page, a pinup icon that she paid tribute to in a 1998 Max photo shoot called "Back to Betty," featuring Eva Herzigova. An even kinkier side of Ellen Von Unwerth comes through in Revenge, her 2003 photo book featuring mud-covered women being flogged at a chateau before they turn the tables on the resident baroness and the chauffeur who brought them there. The domination themes might scare a few guys off (and turn a few others on), but Ellen Von Unwerth likes to reinforce that all of her photos are intended to be fun, not painful. http://au.askmen.com/celebs/women/model/ellen-von-unwerth/

See here a link to Ellen's photobook "Revenge"   I would love to own this book and in fact there are still copies available from various sources, so I had better start saving...

 

 

 

 

 

   

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Exhumed Artists ~ Max Ernst

Max Ernst [1891 – 1976], a German artist once mocked by Hitler and Goebbels in the 'Denigrate art exhibition' preceding the second world war, actually began painting as an expressionist; but after being drafted to serve as a soldier in the infamous trenches of WW1 where he was drafted in 1914....he became deeply effected by the tragedy and stupidity he witnessed there and following the end of that war in 1918 he became a very important founding member of the new Dada movement and later the more refined surrealist movement under the guidance of Andre Breton.

His paintings and sculptures are deeply powerful to both for their aesthetic beauty and for their hidden symbolism and meanings. 'The Robbing of the bride' a very famous work and 'effecting' work was painted in 1939 as an oil on wood. Painted at his studio in saint-Martin d'Ardeche in Northern France as Germany was invading the country...it references his earlier work from, what is termed a graphic novel or picture book, he titled 'une semaine de bonte' (or a week of kindness). In this book he took images from the Victorian period and cut them up and re-pasted them together in a subversive way. And so in the robbing of the bride' Ernst portrays a reconstructed scene....a wedding in a ritualistic manner. The painting has much symbolism and referencing to the Nazi invaders of France and the bird like figure is more reminiscent of a storm trooper and barbarian possessively guarding its French prize. The mirror on the wall behind reflects the dangers of the alliance to the bride and what is about to happen and is typical of Max Ernst's eternal political consciousness.

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Exhumed Artists ~ Helmut Newton

German Photographer, Helmut Newton (1920-2004)

His aesthetic was branded 'porno chic'. To radical feminists, helmut newton was the antichrist - his work outraged many and they protested one of his exhibits by throwing paint on his photos.

'In my vocabulary, ART is a dirty word,' he said, but it can be assumed that the spirit of helmut newton's work has sympathised with the movement of the surrealists. He portraited amazonian women who live, sleep and breathe in immaculate make-up, heavy jewellery and vicious stiletto heels, gorgeous women, expensive gowns, and exotic locations - to create a unique imaginative world. His pictures are showing members from the margins of society engaged in fetish driven meetings with the social elite, surrounded by sumptuous hotels and ancient midnight streets, all of them saturated with decadence, luxury, and privilege. The magic of his art is its complete elusiveness, its cunning refusal to admit the true nature of its subject matter: the failure of reality and the triumph of desire.

Newton reintroduce elements of violence (or the implied threat of danger) by featuring semi-nude, highly germanic, intensely voluptuous models photographed from the rear holding pistols discreetly hidden from their beaus behind their backs. Knives or other instruments of carnage are held in reserve by delicious femmes fatales for moments of ostensible tenderness - and blindly trusting intimacy - with unsuspecting men ripe for the kill.   www.designboom.com

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