Alex Kisilevich’s photographs exist in a staged fantasy world,not unlike a Wes Anderson Film. They use a sense of play and the line between comedy and tradgey to great narrative effect. In Kisilevich’s series …and then you die and On The Surface characters are placed in highly contrived, minimal “sets” where their surroundings engulf,dwarf, and inform them. Their is a sense of a fable in these series, a slight comedic arrangement (the placement of a single character within a largely empty setting reads as comedic to me), but a deeper emotive quality is projected. The photographs tackle mortality, and use the their sets to both sheild and expose us to the intesnity of the characters. In the series Talking to People is Easy and Particulars, Kisilevich creates images of a more humors bent. They have a sense of the playfully bizzare thats under cut with a darker edge, like a Marcel Dzama drawing in three dimensions. A massive trail of vomit, playing in dirt, and alien probing form the vocabulary of the images. Characters are placed against black backdrops which flattens out the images, giving them a one-liner cartoonish feel.  I giggled.

Note: Has anyone else fantasized about a wardrobe so simple