Anne de Vries

“The idea of photography as a way to experience the world as it is not - in different ways - is fascinating to me, transforming the known into an unknown.” So says Dutch photo artist Anne de Vries, and looking at the wealth of ideas and experimentation on show in the work you can see he's a man of his word. Whether playing with overlaid identical images which he cuts sections out of, thus revealing more of the same image on different deeper levels, or photographing the reflection of cave paintings in wrinkled aluminium foil, de Vries is out to see how far can an image be pushed whilst leaving it readable. He takes great delight in finding ways of subverting apparently straightforward images, as with the impossible flora in 'Plan' or the melting saccharin junk food in 'Eye Candy'.

As well as rephotographing images, de Vries has begun to experiment more with digital possibilities, such as the moving image collaboration with musician James Whipple, Forecast. Take a look.

From 'A vs B', with Billy Rennkamp

From the 'Cave 2 Cave' series

Group Face

Accumulations

From 'A vs B', with Billy Rennkamp

Infinite Value

From the 'Modern Unpromised' series

Plan

From the 'Cave 2 Cave' series

Eye Candy, with Janis Ponisch

All images © Anne de Vries

Daniel Aires Grazina

ECAL, the art school in Lausanne, Switzerland, is a formidable proving ground for talented young Swiss creatives, and Pierre Fantys, the Head of the Photography Department there, has helped mould and polish a generation of fascinating and inventive photographers. Daniel Aires Grazina is one of the most interesting graduates from last year, and true to ECAL form, much of his imagery involves elaborately constructed dioramas and fantasies. The Nature Humaine series, shown here in colour, is Grazina's attempt to create idealised natural scenes within an obviously domestic environment. The cascading waterfall surrounded by verdant ferns tumbling out of kitchen units, or the miniature sand-swept Monument Valley discovered in the corner of a room hint at utopias found in the most unlikely places at home, a meeting of the banal and the picturesque.

The black and white series, showing inventive destinies for the most mundane objects, is from a collaboration with fellow ECAL graduate Charles Negre, another interesting talent whose work explores fantastical scenarios in the most unexpected places.

From Le Cabinet, 2010, with Charles Negre

From the Nature Humaine series

From Le Cabinet, 2010, with Charles Negre

From the Nature Humaine series

From Le Cabinet, 2010, with Charles Negre

From the Nature Humaine series

All images © Daniel Aires Grazina except where noted