Bizarre or trending subjects? Catch a break with our curiosity of the week. Painter and photographer, Richard Tuschman produced Hopper Meditations, elegant tribute to the famous American painter Edward Hopper.
Originating from the Midwest, the photographer Richard Tuschman first studied painting at an art school. After working as a painter and sculptor, the artist then turned towards photography in the 1990’s thanks to the development of editing tools such as Photoshop. “It was a sort of black room that I felt comfortable with. Back then I worked as a graphic designer, and I was immediately attracted to what the software offered”, the artist remembers. Preferring to work in series, he considers himself more of a “director”. “I always ask myself, he says. What stories am I tryingto tell? What is the mood I want to express? What should the setting look like? Who are the characters and what is their pont of view?”
Fascinated by Edward Hopper’s artworks, Richard Tuschman began to create Hopper Meditations in 2011, a work inspired by the paintings of the artist. “I discovered his artworks at the Whitney Museum of New York, in 1979. At the time, I had just moved to the Big Apple so I could easily relate to the mood of isolation in the pictures”, he admits. His series, a true tribute to the painter, recreate the delicate atmosphere, both elegant and gloomy, characteristic of Hopper’s paintings.
A dreamy and dramatic universe
“Each setting is a miniature the size of a doll house that I have built and painted myself. I then photographed all my models in a studio, against a plain backdrop. Finally, I made the digital composites in Photoshop, where I sometimes further enhanced the painterly qualities”, Richard Tuschman explains. Extremely detailed, his settings seem to blur the boundary between reality and fantasy. A way for the photographer to create a dreamy and dramatic universe.
Although his concept evokes the dreamy wanderings of Alice in Wonderland, the images become paintings. By playing with the inertia of the models and the lighting, Richard Tuschman succeeds in recreating the atmosphere so unique to the famous painter’s paintings. “However, my lightings is really closer to Rembrandt’s than Edward Hopper’s”, the photographer jokes. His characters — just like the ones from the painter’s artworks — remain deep in thought and seem to come out of an exciting tale. An inter-temporal work intertwining painting and photography.
© Richard Tuschman
