A Surrealist Subverts Vintage Ads, with Creepy Results

Studio 360

Berlin-based artist Pierre Schmidt, akaDrmsjel, transforms The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit-era domestic advertisements into creepy, uncanny collages to whichSalvador Dali might have givenan approving quiverof his mustache. It’s more than trippy psychedelia; Schmidt’smanipulation of existing images nodsto anti-art, Surrealism, and outsider art like the work of Henry Darger. Schmidt’s work beginswith photomontage, the process ofre-purposing found images (a favorite Dadaist technique). Rather than scissors and glue, Schmidt uses a computer to make his outlandishvisions, but the basic principle hasn’t changed much. Not only do the images provoke asense of dysphoria with their blunt convergence of the nightmarish andsuburban, but they would be a pretty rad addition to your dorm room wall. Scroll down to see before-and-afterGIF’s of the artist’s process.

To see more of the artist’s work, visit Drmsjel’sTumblrorInstagram.

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