Chema Madoz - Born 1958 Personal Background Chema is a Spanish photographer, best known for his black and white photography. Chema went to Universidad de Madrid to study the history of art. Chema has won some important awards such as the kodak Spain prize, higasikawa overseas photographer, photo Spain, and national photography award. His work has been internationally exhibited in galleries and museums all over the world. he also likes to take his photos with a camera with the format hasselbald (a Swedish format).
Style He takes black and white surrealist photos. He likes to create visual optical illusions. One of his favorite techniques is to take two objects and blend them as one. He also likes to take objects and make them look like different objects. All of his work looks like they could be painted because they are simple but yet so detailed.
Philosophy His images are trying to say that things aren't always what they seem. People always look at things don't pay enough attention. like they might look past the story or the meaning. like when he used hair as shoe laces. the average person would just see shoes but he shows that sometimes reality doesn't meet expectations.
Influences He has taught me to find the detail in the most simple things. Also to look past what you might see and look deeper. Also you don't need a ton of action to take a good photo. Also he taught me to be more creative with my photos. Also that a picture might not be what it seems.
Compare and Contrast Chema is of course a professional photographer so of course our images will have some differences. In the first photo that he took was an image of a burnt match on wood that makes the lines of the wood look like fire, when I tried to do the same I was having a hard time finding wood like that. Mine is taken from farther away and the "fire" is way larger. The second image was a "thermometer" but made with a match. In the image you can see that his matches are larger than mine and his numbers were printed and mine were written. The final image was a cup with a spoon in it. His was taken in a much darker setting and his also has more of a gradient in the background. His also was taken at a different angle and his looks more calm.
Personal Artist Statement All of my images are a surrealist form of a minimalistic illusion. It takes a second to figure out what each image is trying to show because of the visual illusions. They all look really basic and simple but if you look deeper into the image you can see the details. The first two make matches look like different objects than what they are and the third isn't trying to make a different object at all. The third picture is where I was just trying to make the spoon distorted like it is broken. My fire picture has a few imperfections in how large the fire is but that is what makes it its own image.