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Artist Superimposes Subjects of Classical Paintings into Modern Day Kiev

Ukrainian artist and art director Alexey Kondakov creates surreal digital collages that fuse history with modern life. He superimposes subjects from classic paintings by artists like Hayez, Caravaggio, and Bourguereau, placing them in subway stations and bars located in his hometown of Kiev. The project is titled 2 Reality.

Kondakov frees the nymphs, royals, and goddesses from the confines of their original compositions and inserts them into a much different world. Thanks to his fantastic photo manipulation skills, they blend into the cityscape, and it seems like you might see them whenever you take the train.

This amusingly ironic mashup shows that not quite everything has changed between the times in these paintings and contemporary culture. It's how Kondakov had the idea for the series in the first place. He visited a museum and saw a painting of friends drinking wine and celebrating. As the artist explains on Junk Culture, “I thought, some things have not changed in a long while.”

Alexey Kondakov Facebook
via [Fubiz and Junk Culture]

Sara Barnes

Sara Barnes is a Staff Editor at My Modern Met, Manager of My Modern Met Store, and co-host of the My Modern Met Top Artist Podcast. As an illustrator and writer living in Seattle, she chronicles illustration, embroidery, and beyond through her blog Brown Paper Bag and Instagram @brwnpaperbag. She wrote a book about embroidery artist Sarah K. Benning titled 'Embroidered Life' that was published by Chronicle Books in 2019. Sara is a graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art. She earned her BFA in Illustration in 2008 and MFA in Illustration Practice in 2013.
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