Canadian photographer and digital artist, Sean Mundy, constructs realities that are esoteric and unrelenting in nature.
He captures the conditioned scenario before him and then finetunes them digitally. A master in conceptual imagery, Mundy expresses his ideas in a delicately subtle mood which gives the viewer ample space to draw their own conclusions. He aims to emphasise glaring disparities between the self in relation to the environment and institutions – as well as interpersonal discord.
Some principal elements characteristic of Sean Mundy include the use of humans as exploitations of the surroundings and contextual strife; profound use of colour to; and vehicles of the motif. His works can be perceived as distant simulations, their meanings conjured up by the viewer as they navigate through the artist’s calculated mise-en-scène.
There is something unsettling yet mesmerising about Mundy’s catalog. In many images, man’s range of motion is explored in such a way that seems imprisoning. This can be seen in “Untitled (Red Thread)”, where a person appears erected and mounted in place by a chrysalis of red thread.
With its back towards us, the hostage faces double desolation – the quarantine that separates them from interacting with the environment and geographical abandonment. Not to mention the damning audacity of the incarcerating thread, bright red against a backdrop of forlornness.
The humans that appear in Sean Mundy’s images are just about as foreign as the setting they are placed in. They may be considered aliens in a sense, if one considers how alienation is illustrated in many of Mundy’s photographs. Colour becomes an entity that interacts with these beings. At times, they consume their entire silhouette and tower like obelisks.
In other instances, colour creates a discrimination or a break in the image that suggests a stage of conflict. Black is among the choice colours Mundy utilises in his images to add to the neutral, somber tone of his catalog. Sean Mundy bears a rich vision that allows him to mold gripping scenes that seek to penetrate thought and examine humanity within the circumstances of conflict.
All images, courtesy of artist: Sean Mundy
