The Surreal, Architectural Horror of Jim Kazanjian

[Videodrome]

http://www.kazanjian.net

Just an interesting random artist I came across. I guess he stock piles random old photos and his own stock photos and composites them into surreal architecture scenes.

If I was still into photography, I would like to do stuff like this. I don't do it because it would take me a massive amount of time lol.

Studying Jim Kazanjian's work, it's not surprising to find out that the artist's favorite horror film is The Shining. Kubrick's use of the Overlook Hotel as a device to twist our inherent anxieties about isolation and vulnerability — in a space that simultaneously feels massive and suffocating — touches upon some of the same themes Kazanjian references in his surreal architectural photo collages.


Nor is it far-fetched to imagine the reasons behind the artist's "strong obsession" with The Cat and the Canary screen canon (the 1978 version by Radley Metzger is his favorite), as each movie's shadowy passageways and strange interiors could easily be fragments of Kazanjian's dream-like, crumbling structures.


The Portland-based photographer has also been looking at M.R. James' ghost stories and feels particularly drawn to H.P. Lovecraft's dark cosmology, which has informed his body of work. "The idea of an ancient, unspeakable evil hibernating in deep space is just too captivating," the artist mused during our recent interview. But Kazanjian's disorienting creations are far more than the sum of his influences.

 

[Plainview]

Awesome.

 

[Oblong]

More please!!!

 

[Videodrome]

These buildings feel like MYST meets Lovecraft.