With her
talent for creating the all things comically bizarre, Yumiko Utsu does not just
take pictures she makes them. She uses such a shallow depth of field that it
appears as if she is using a scanner. However, the verification that she used a
camera is evident in her thoughtfully arranged compositions of miniature
figurines and out-of-the-water animals.
Utsu’s attention to craft when she is building her files is
extraordinary as well. Being sure to draw subtle attention to the bizarre
colors of the squids in comparison to the iconic pieces beneath them is an
exceptional feat. Her pieces were designed to be weird but overbearingly so.
This
technique compliments her style of wanting to transform what she feels to be
boring or mundane into something unnatural and oddly appealing. There also seems to be a relation to her
wanting to take aquatic creatures native to Japan and add them to that piece.
It is almost as if Utsu wishes to transform these European images and sculptures
into Japanese delicacies. In a since, through her bizarre surrealism, she wants
to personalize these famous works with a very unique, tentacle signature.
Utsu makes
me question creating surreal images. This artist makes me want to try what she
is doing with my own prints rather than pre-existing artworks. I like her over-the-top style and exaggerated contrast. Yumiko Utsu shows me that I can create
my own world here in the now using aspects from the past.
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