Big Cat Big Fish Little Man

The Strange World Of Manuel Archain, An Artist Who Photographs His Dreams
Source: Huffington Post
By: Alessandro Luigi Perna
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/15/surreal-photographs-manue_n_6472474.html?utm_hp_ref=arts

     Contemporary photographer Manuel Archain (thirty-one years old) from Argentina is gradually beginning to rise to fame. His work, exhibited in Lugano Italy, presents surrealism in a form where it unquestionably cannot be denied, a photograph. As curator of the exhibit Barbara Malacrida states, Archain's work "concentrates on man as the protagonist of a messy, complex, poetic and oneiric society. An analysis of the aesthetic ambiguity of seeming" (Perna, 1). By choosing photography as his means of capturing his visions, Archain has managed to present an altered form of reality in a way that appears real, actual. He began, at first, by working within the confines of reality, including no edits or post-production on his photographs, limited only to what the eye could see, what was actually there. Yet after some time, he realized that what he truly wanted to do was depict his thoughts and dreams, a majority of which were surreal. By allowing his mind and imagination to surpass the restrictions of reality, Archain was able to depict that which is deemed impossible, in a form that only serves to capture that which is real, allowing his works to become "surreal and real at the same time" (Perna, 1).
    Photography, from the time of its invention, has served a central purpose of capturing reality in a way that cannot be questioned or denied. It has become a form of preservation of the truth. Yet what Archain has managed to do goes against all preconceived notions of this form of preservation, presenting the viewer with a form that seems real, yet holds within it a convoluted mass of dreams and imagination. And as one's eyes grow accustomed to such scenes, they simultaneously open up to possibility. As the often too serious perception of life manages to exit one's mind, a new form of life opens up, one which sees no limitations, one which sees minimum seriousness in reality, taking life lightheartedly, as it was meant to be taken.