TOKYO-2017 Fine Art / Special Effects

Fairy Tales

  • Prize
    Silver in Fine Art/Collage, Silver in Fine Art/Special Effects
  • Photographer
    Cristian Townsend

Fairy Tales is a series of photos that explores the way fantasy, myths and stories can manipulate and deceive as much as they can inspire. In these days of Alternative Facts and Fake News it is becoming ever more important to seek out the truth from the myths and propaganda. There is a dark, political edge to these photos that aim to bring a sardonic, critical eye to the genre of Fairy Tales in the way that Frank L Baum and Jonathan Swift intended. I'm inspired by writers like Angela Carter and Italo Calvino in their playful and surreal reworking of fairy tales and the structural analysis of theorists like Vladimir Propp.

Cristian Townsend is a West Australian, Fine Art Photographer, living and working in Osaka, Japan. Specialising in dreamlike photomontages that endeavour to question and push boundaries. Inspired by Surrealism's provocation and Buddhist philosophy. His work playfully juxtaposes ideas, in order to, like a Zen Koen, see beyond our cultural conventions. To seek truth. His Photomontages use motifs from Classical to Modernist Art, From war-time Propaganda to Modern Advertising, the Cinema, the Mass Media and Science Fiction. "Everything should be questioned and everything should be explored. Art