I decided to come back to Crewdson to analyse more in depth his style and his narratives. Reading about him and looking at his work, I noticed all those stories in his images, he loves narratives and I believe he only does narratives. He is interested in that "blurred line between reality and fantasy" which I think is quite intriguing because his vision is amazing and what he can create is absolutely fantastic.
What he does, basically, he creates a narrative and he delivers the final scene and leaves the viewer to interpret the whole scene and come up with his own version of what the image might illustrate. He tries to compel the viewer to engage with the narrative and try to think about answers to be able to explain what the photograph's message is. He is that photographer that likes to create images that "ask more questions that they can answer"(GC). He wants perfection in his images and that's why he is obsessed with creating every detail to make the image and ore the world in that image perfect.
In an interview that I read online with him, he talks about his early years when he was at home and his father who is a psychoanalyst had his office in the basement of their house and Crewdson would "put his ear to the floorboard above his office and listen to his sessions, trying to imagine what was going on, creating a mental image of what was happening downstairs."
I do believe that his wish of creating scenarios in a perfect world comes from that moment when he wanted to find out what was happening in his dad's office. I believe he developed a wish for constructing this kind of scenarios, created from his own imagination and "experience". That is where everything comes from. It is fascinating to see how childhood can influence your life.
He listens and then he creates the story. He is a story teller.
He has been compared to David Lynch because Crewdson' s stills are similar to the ones in Lynch's films, separate from reality: strange scenes with o concrete narrative meaning.
Looking at David Lynch I came across one of his projects.
He collaborated with Christian Louboutin to create fetishist shoes for one of Lynch's exhibition. His images are extreme and visually arresting.
But looking at other work of Lynch's, I do get why Crewdson was associated with him as Lynch's photographs are quite absurd as well.
Edward Hopper was also one of the artists that Crewdson was compared to.
Hopper's amazing paintings have always been an inspiration to me in terms of how he portrayed women in different situations. He managed to place human figures, especially women, in a balance with the environment, focusing on their body.I can also see his interest in geometrical design which I have discovered lately about myself as well.
He was also interested in the interaction between the human being and the environment. Looking at these images, I can see that his working themes were solitude, sadness, boredom or regret. What I like about his paintings is that he illustrates these feelings and emotions in other environments as well such as restaurants, in offices etc rather than focusing only on one type like bedrooms. His paintings have that cinematic style as they were created for a movie.
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