Put antagonism and harmony together and you get antimony, a state of dissonance between two entities that ought to have a perfectly symbiotic relationship. Ukrainian-born artist Adriana Shmahalo coined Antimony as the title for a recent series of photo illustrations that exposes the unstable ground where human nature and Mother Nature intersect.
"Humankind is in many cases antagonistic to the harmony of nature," says the artist. Shmahalo's artwork captures that antagonism by blending buildings and technology with scenes of unspoiled nature. The result is a dreamy mélange of human and natural environments that questions our self-appointed stewardship over the planet.
Shmahalo studied art in her native Ukraine before coming to the U.S. five years ago. She is currently earning a master's degree in art at California State University, Fresno, and works as a graphic designer and college-level Adobe® Photoshop® instructor. While creating images in Photoshop, she uses filters to achieve her desired effects but tries to preserve realism. In this way viewers are more likely to pay attention to her images than to wonder how she created them in the first place.
|
