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These Pop-Surreal Photos Have Us Seeing Double

Double bananas? Google-eyed horses? Columbian artist Daniel Forero has found his passion: photo illustration.
Images courtesy the artist

Up for a Matryoshka banana? How about a googly-eyed horse? Columbian artist Daniel Forero abandoned the world of advertising, instead creating his own subversive, Pop art-inflected imagery—and our two eyes are glad he did. The Columbian artist spent the first seven years his career making consumer-driven imagery, working first in Argentina, and then in Sweden.

His bright, outlandish compositions hint at surrealism while maintaining a polished and accessible bent. Other images subvert conventional ideas of Pop by combining the expected with the unexpected. Pieces of fruit are peeled to reveal the textures of other fruits. An ice cream cone feels slightly dangerous when topped with a cactus. A billiard ball turns out to have the crunchy core of an apple. Though unexpected, the optical details of Forero's work read as playful and friendly, not subversive.

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“I started developing my style about two years ago, just out of frustration. I was very frustrated doing some advertising work I wasn’t enjoying very much. It was summer, with a lot of fun things happening outside, and I had to stay in doing that work," Forero tells The Creators Project.

"This frustration made me think of visualizing 'frustration' and I created my first image, The Cactus Ice Cream. For some reason, I felt that I had discovered the best way to express feelings in an artistic way, and I haven’t stopped creating photo illustrations since then."

“I describe my work as simple, bold, and conceptual. I try to focus on an idea first and then I think of the execution. I tend to keep it simple and use strong colors to highlight my compositions," Forero says.

“Also, I have to add a feeling to my work,” he explains. “Most of the time, I illustrate negative feelings, so I like to balance that negativity with a playful environment.”

To see more work by Daniel Forero, visit his Behance page here.

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