With high-impact
collage, a clever marriage of improbability and style makes all the difference.
The desired
effect is, most often, an incongruous soup of delight, bewilderment, awe, agitation,
alarm, and/or queasiness.
British
artist Ryan Dunn does just this, but he does something else as well. Much of
his work plays as skilfully off the empty space as it does the space he fills.
The effect is that of quietude, collages as enigmatic as the photographs in an
old atlas, as a view out to sea on a foggy day.
He’s also
damn funny. The louder elements of his portfolio are an equally accomplished
batch of dada-esque absurdities, exactly the sort of arrangements that enthrall whilst
holding firmly to the realm of the weird. So viscerally playful are these
disjointed pairings that it’s almost impossible not to feel the waistband
tightening around your temples, the chameleon in your mouth, the dog’s nose between
your legs. Shudder.
Beyond this kind of excellent stuff, Dunn also dabbles in industrial design, creating works as devilishly ludicrous as the "Bench Chair" (in which "the individual is permitted to enjoy the functional benefits of a chair and the emotional or territorial benefits of a bench"), among various other "chair subversions".
I won't give away much more then that.
More from
Ryan Dunn on his website Inane Systems, here.
