Polish Artist Gives An Uncomfortable And Surreal Twist To Corny American Photos

Remember those dreams, where everything looks real, yet something is a little bit off? Well, Polish artist Weronika Gęsicka's unsettling images explore these uncanny themes. They portray a distorted reality, but the nightmarish scenes still appear plausible, and this duality looks captivating.

"The project is based on vintage photographs purchased from an image bank," Gęsicka says. "Most of these photos came from American archives from the 1950s and 1960s." They include family scenes, vacation souvenirs, everyday life, suspended between truth and fiction. It's hard to determine if they are natural and spontaneous, or entirely staged.

"We know nothing of the actual ties between the individuals in the photographs; we can only guess at the truthfulness of their gestures and gazes," Gęsicka says. "Are they actors playing happy families, or real persons whose photos were put up for sale by the image bank?" Currently, Gęsicka is a guest artist at the Circulations festival for young European photographers in Paris.

More info: weronickagesicka.com (dyt, theguardian)