Fashion 1st place winner

In my series Surreal Fashion I blur the boundaries between the genres of fine art and fashion, picturing contemporary models with a classical reference. In this sequence of 5 images, no Photoshop compositing is used. All 5 images were meticulously set up in camera, all shot on location in some of the the most striking stately houses in France, England and US. Larger-than-life, movie-like characters dwell in dreamlike narratives, inspired by Renaissance painting and Dutch masters, heavily styled with wigs, dresses and taxidermy. The women become another object of desire in a world of gilt, chandeliers, and four-poster beds. Each frame bustles with motifs for another, utopic world perhaps of the past, that we long to inhabit.

Mixing art and fashion photography, British artist Miss Aniela (Natalie Dybisz b. 1986) creates a fine balance of contemporary creativity. Her work centres on a fusion of traditional imagery and digitally enhanced motifs, interweaving in a surreal composition.

Miss Aniela began in 2006 as a self-portraitist, her ‘Self-Gazing’ series becoming quickly invited for numerous exhibitions and art fairs in London, Madrid, North & South America. Through ten years Miss Aniela has evolved her passion for surrealism in the collection ‘Surreal Fashion’, where Miss Aniela pictures contemporary models with a reference to Renaissance and Dutch masters, shooting in stately home settings across Europe and USA. Larger-than-life characters dominate a dreamlike tableaux of chandeliers, taxidermy and four-poster beds; motifs for another, utopic world of the past that we long to inhabit. Miss Aniela’s recent work also involves the ‘Face’ series, intricate laborious artworks merging large-scale faces with hundreds of paintings from art history.

Miss Aniela has been exhibited by the Saatchi Gallery, House of Parliament, Waldermarsudde Museum Stockholm and Vogue Italia in Milan; and in numerous media including BBC, Plastik Magazine, Yahoo, The Metro and NY Arts.