Toon Joosen

Digital Surreal Collages

Sometimes, it’s just plain good to laugh. Or giggle. Or chuckle or guffaw.

Thank you, Toon Joosen.

Joosen’s digital surreal collages twist familiar reality, the mundane aspects of life, and ridicule them with a subtlety that makes the nature of the artwork only slightly less believable than the actual scenes from which Joosen clips elements. His filtering and toning of the photographic elements in the collages add just enough distance from the everyday to make it clear these are to be seen as slightly warped or otherwise askew.

The use of View-Master 3D image devices as the faces — and particularly, the eyes — of the family members in It’s All in the Family turns the notion of a family portrait inside out. A family portrait is supposed to capture the family’s looks and, with any luck or photographer’s skill, emotional dynamic as frozen at a singular moment. The old-school technology of View-Master photographic slide reels — the descendants of stereoscopes — incorporated actual photos from tourist destinations as well as cartoon images and, for the right price, family photographs. So It’s All in the Family is a collage that looks at a family looking at the world looking at them.

The Great Catch (above) and Holiday Is Over (at top) collages move day-at-the-beach festivities to new locations — a waterfront downtown — and new activities — collecting buildings instead of seashells and vacuuming up vacationers instead of the trash so many of them leave on the sand. Once again, the impact is one of near-believability. Of course, little boys gather up souvenirs from their trip. Of course, a matronly person leaves the place better than she found it. The people in these pieces just happen to be gigantic, and their souvenirs or detritus just happen to be appropriate to the scene, even if the humans are not.

And where does H²O, the source of life, come from? Why, it comes from Love; where else?

About Toon Joosen

Toon Joosen is a Dutch art director and visual designer. He graduated from the St. Joost Academy of Modern Arts Graphic Design Department. His ideas are based on daily observations and ordinary objects. He uses magazines, postcards, paper, street-junk, his own photography and his own drawings to create tongue-in-cheek scenarios with a vintage feel.

Bio information distilled from various online sources. Images retrieved from https://www.etsy.com/shop/ToonJoosenArt