Dean West: Laurels for Dean

Having already been hailed as the world’s best emerging photographer and bagging ABC’s international photography prize, Dean WEST has yet another magazine singing his praises. This time it’s fotoMAGAZIN Edition.

The feature covers works spanning from his trampoline Medusa to the infamous Octopus attack. West’s work is often steeped in historical references – including for example Greek mythology, Renaissance symbolism and Freud’s dream theory.

With great theatrical skill, he weaves a tale into every inch of his canvas, ultimately creating a world that is ancient yet entirely new to us. The 29 year old photographer is worthy of every rave review he has garnered over his career so far, and as fotoMAGAZIN themselves put it: ‘Every Master stands on the shoulders of giants. Dean West is such a Master’.

Dean West: Lego or Reality?

Dean West’s latest photo series ‘In Pieces’ has been two years in the making and it’s been well worth the wait. This awe inspiring project came about from a collaboration with New York based artist Nathan Sawaya, whose painstakingly crafted sculptures have been seamlessly integrated into West’s work. At first glance, the large format photographs reveal highly stylized and utterly beautiful minimalist American landscapes.
However, upon closer inspection, we can see that an object within each scene is in fact made entirely of LEGO. Each image compels the viewer to visually deconstruct the work; what is real and what is LEGO? It leaves us questioning the nature of the world in the picture and, by extension, the world around us. The series not only delivers on a visual level but a conceptual one and is quite simply one of the most inspired collaborative projects of the past decade.

Dean West or: The art history strikes back.

If Hieronymus Bosch and Rembrandt could have children, then Dean West would be their illegitimate son. Somewhere between Bosch’s fantastical hellscapes and Rembrandt’s masterful use of light and dark lies the work of West. Whether it’s an avant-garde personal project or a commercial campaign, whether portrait or a meticulously composed setting: West draws from a seemingly endless repertoire of ideas, talent and visual drama. His Old Master parents must be very proud of him.