09 September 2013

Fotolia presents Sergio Del Puerto, aka Serial Cut™

Submitted by: Michelle Haarhoff

Cape Town, September 9th – After featuring Lydia Baillergeau and her motion design in August, as 2nd Season first special edition artist, the TEN Collection takes back its course. It is now headed to Spain with its 8th international artist: Sergio del Puerto, better known as his studio name, Serial Cut™ His unpublished work, « Faux tiroirs », will be downloadable for free for 24 hours on Tuesday, September 10th, 2013 on www.tenbyfotolia.com.

A modern cabinet of curiosities

His ambition for the TEN project: create a "Wow” effect, i.e. impact the public at first sight. "A creative should above all be surprising, whether visually or conceptually. But the creative commitment must be strong and distinguish itself”. 

Once the attention of the public drawn, Serial Cut™ likes to drag it towards a second approach to his work, deeper and more detailed. “I like it when people take time to examine an image, when they enjoy looking for details, wonder what’s real or digital, etc.”.

And this was the aim of "Faux tiroirs". Inspired by the Renaissance cabinets of curiosities, Serial Cut™’s work is filled with details: human members mingled with daily life utensils, but also trees, tubes, a grid, blue little fellows, etc. An enigmatic, strange andwacky jumble inviting to lose oneself in the winding mazes of the artist’s mind.

This strange laboratory called for various techniques, from Photoshop photomontage to 3D work with Cinema 4D. The challenge was to harmonize the light and colourimetry of the photography’s found on Fotolia - each with its own post production works - with original 3D images created by the studio. “We had to take these constraints into account, and rework some pics, for a bad shadow or the wrong orientation of a reflection shows at once, and breaks the whole scene realism.”

A crossing between surrealism, pop culture and luxury…

“With irony in prime”, points out Sergio del Puerto when defining his work. His artistic freedom is undeniably a consequence of his freedom of tone. The artist undertakes his artistic references, and knows when to decline projects which do not inspire him. “A good designer is defined by his/her capacity and will to develop and defend his/her own projects. The most difficult thing, but also the most necessary, is to have your own visual identity, and an authentic style.”.

This "image maker", as is defined the studio, is self educated and finds inspiration in anything surrounding him: in modern and in classic art, especially Magritte, in architecture and design, but also in movies and series, particularly the Monty Python, and even in childhood memories. “As a little boy, I couldn’t understand the fun other kids had in making figurines fight, when my own pleasure was to pose them before me to take pictures. Today, I still enjoy creating life scenes, and making them immortal on a photograph.”

Meeting the artist

Two videos, with subtitles in 12 languages were filmed in the artist’s country. One, which presents his personal inspiration, influences and daily life will be available on Facebook’s TEN page as of September 6th. The second one, in which he shares his artistic techniques and step-by-step creation process, will be available on the TEN release day, Tuesday, September 10th 2013, on www.tenbyfotolia.com.

About TEN

TEN is a creative, digital and educational project created by Fotolia in 2011, which aims at democratizing digital art. TEN, as in 10 artists, 10 countries, 10 months and 10 PSDs. This unprecedented project allows any web user to download for the PSD source file for free over a 24 hour period, for ten of the world’s best digital artists. This allows the artists to share their work techniques, and cultural influences. Each user can access the set of layers, graphic elements, and style effects held in each PSD, and appropriate them to use them in his/her own work. This community initiative was born from the cooperation between Fotolia and two well-known graphic communities: Wisibility and Amkashop. TEN is also supported by national and international partners, such as Adobe, Behance, Wacom, Design Times, Design Indaba

Learn more on www.tenbyfotolia.com