KYLIE WOON
source: papermag
Kylie Woon, the 21-year-old photographer behind Surreal-ity, an eerie, dreamy series of photos making the rounds around the Internet, explains the concept behind her images: “Everyone feels a sense of longing or wistfulness for something at some point and it is then that they escape into their minds,” says Woon. “I feel like my pictures are created in that ‘place’, that ‘wavelength’ that all people visit in their dreams, in their most personal thoughts.”
All of the photos were shot in Hawaii, where Woon was once a student at the University of Hawaii, before relocating to Singapore for art school. To create the photos, Woon says she begins by remembering a feeling in her mind, creates a “mind-map” and then selects the perfect location to shoot said feeling. The real magic happens in the editing. “My images are all manipulated in Photoshop,” says Woon. “I composite two or more images together to create the surreal floating effects.”
Woon (who is also the girl in the pictures) says that she’s trying to capture this very specific, yet universal feeling. “I’ve always believed everyone has this quiet, wistful personal world within them — places so personal that they’re often not discussed or even consciously thought about,” says Woon. “That ‘dreamplace’ is sort of where I want to meet and connect with people.”
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source: lense
Kylie Woon est parvenue à imposer un style poétique, relâchée, partant comme beaucoup d’amateurs d’une absence totale d’expérience et de connaissances.
Puis l’idée de se servir du digital pour juxtaposer des photos vient d’elle-même, la seule façon convaincante selon elle pour animer ces scènes sorties tout droit de son imagination. Surprenantes de simplicité dans leurs compositions, ces instants de rêves éveillés prennent tour à tour l’allure de rêve en apesanteur, de chute fatale, de déprime mortel ou d’envol sans limites. Curieuse et éphémère, la série Sureal-ity invoque l’imaginaire enfantin de la photographe, et un goût prononcé pour le corps comme outil désincarné.