“Magritte in space”

digital collage

20 works, 60*90 cm

2025-…

This project is a series of surreal digital collages where incompatible realities and temporal layers collide. These visual paradoxes, echoing the enigmatic poetics of René Magritte (where, for instance, an apple could become a planet), create a world of cosmic folklore or future archaeology. I explore the theme of absurd progress: how the old (traditions, ways of life) can exist within the radically new (neural networks, talks of flights to Mars). I’m interested in whether humanity, which dreamed of conquering space, will develop a longing for the earthly on other planets. Does a new reality change humanity’s old habits? These are my philosophical reflections on humanity’s place in the universe, on the perpetual conflict between its history and its aspirations. I use collage to combine incompatible elements from different sources, on one hand creating the very absurdity that is the essence of my concept—a literal embodiment of paradox. On the other hand, working with authentic visual documents from different eras (old engravings, photographs, magazines, NASA’s scientific space imagery) using digital tools constitutes a real collision of different temporal strata, lending the work a sense of documentary authenticity. References to the surrealist techniques of René Magritte (the mystery of the mundane, playing with context) help transport the viewer to a new, cosmic era. The project is still ongoing. As new space news and scientific data emerge, I continue to add new works to the series.