Via Piranha Daily news comes this post on LensCulture Web Log. The images are striking, but the post (and the other articles linked from it) seem to think there is something new in this way of working. I suppose this is the Damien Hirst theory of art - if someone famous (even for 15 minutes) does it, then it's art, but if it's anyone else then it's bollocks. I'm not saying Palla's images are themselves bollocks, just the critical context that presents them as exceptional. To my mind they draw on Escher, while the working methods will be familiar to anyone who has used Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro.
Starting from one original image I duplicate the layer, rotate, or flip it over. I then set the channel of the composition layer to “bright” or “dark” and shift it slowly until I see some interesting image.
Sometimes I repeat this process with completed images. The key of this process is to use only one image and also never to shift it randomly.
For what it's worth, this is the process I use almost exclusively:
Here for instance:
I also use the same idea with modified versions of the original photograph, layered and mirrored to provide 'texture' as here:
In this image the combination of several layers some mirrored provides the shimmer around the two dancers.
I suppose this sounds a bit peevish, but it is an illustration I think of the problems of 'outsider' art. Unless you are part of the art school/gallery system, your chances of getting a show or any recognition are minimal. In my case, approaches to galleries have been simply ignored, without even the courtesy of a rejection slip. I've had more success in what I think of as the 'retail' world - gift shops and the like.
My experience is just in the UK, but I suspect that the US is much teh same.
