Szilveszter Makó’s enigmatic pictures carry layers of thriller and introspection. Standing inside curious block-like backdrops and lain towards two-dimensional fields of colour and texture, his topics seamlessly meld into tales by which each element carries intention.
Taking inspiration from artwork historical past, the Milan-based artist references Surrealism and grotesque artwork by his use of chiaroscuro results by way of gentle exploration and contrasting earth tones. Just like Twentieth-century Surrealist work, Makó’s pictures delve into uncanny realms and evoke a dreamlike sense of unfettered creativeness. It’s no shock that the photographer was as soon as a painter and has prompt that these impulses could also be a unconscious homage to his earlier chapters.
Thriller presents itself in Makó’s images by tactility that’s tough to pinpoint. Delicate however moody components—reminiscent of grain and halation surrounding moments of brightness—level to the opportunity of filmic qualities achieved by chemical response, quite than digital manipulation. Whereas the photographer doesn’t reveal his particular post-production methods, he explains, “I might not name it a secret however extra of an unorthodox course of… those that perceive the historical past of analog images may most likely acknowledge what I’m doing.”
Makó’s robust sense of fashion could be attributed to his distinct mise en scène, consisting of handmade props made with recycled supplies, rigorously constructed theatrical environments, and daring but typically sculptural clothes that add visible curiosity by elongated traces and exaggerated silhouettes. Typically highlighting designer items by Schapiarelli, Maison Margiela, Prada, Bottega, and extra, the artist has additionally teamed up with extra industrial names, reminiscent of Zara, and most just lately, Adidas.
“Once we come into the studio, the whole lot that my workforce and I’ve ready, just like the props, the costumes, and the designs, pile up in a single room,” Makó shares in a dialog with Artribune. “I wish to see all of it collide. As what we think about beforehand doesn’t all the time need to come collectively in the best way we deliberate.”
One of the distinguishable motifs throughout the artist’s pictures is a field. This cubic ingredient seems in lots of kinds—a confined house that fashions discover themselves in, the repeating shapes that make up checkered flooring, house-inspired headpieces, or, extra just lately, its evolution right into a two-dimensional compositional ingredient in playful flat-lay pictures. “For me, the field is each a restriction and a liberation,” Makó notes. “It centralizes the host while concurrently amplifying it, stopping power from scattering throughout the body.”
Whereas the field’s formally geometric traits lend itself to an evolution of order, construction, and steering, the photographer additionally enthusiastically welcomes spontaneous moments, explaining that “management makes pictures chilly and calculated, leaving a lot with out that means. A shoot ought to breathe, it ought to evolve, it ought to shock even those that are making it.”
Though Makó recurrently works with a slew of well-known celebrities—reminiscent of Elle Fanning, Dangerous Bunny, Michelle Yeoh, Willem Dafoe, Cate Blanchett, and extra—he possesses a novel capacity to transcend the veil of fame, artfully translating even probably the most recognizable faces into one thing solely of his personal. He shares, “I don’t deal with celebrities otherwise from anybody else. We enter the room as equals. The set isn’t a hierarchy, it’s a house the place we work collectively.”
See extra from the photographer on Instagram, and discover his pictures printed in editions of Vogue, The Lower, Zits Paper, Vainness Honest, GQ, and extra.
