Oriol Jolonch (Barcelona, 1973) cultivates the surreal in his photography with dreamlike scenes which unveil magical states of the unconscious lit by flashes of lucidity. His invented realities are the result of technologically altered images and the bizarre and tragicomic recreation of reality. Winner of last year's Fundació Vila Casas Sculpture Prize, Jolonch presents some 30 pieces in this exhibition of photographs where animals, vegetable elements, the industrial world and vast natural landscapes are fused into unsettling reliquary images.
Despite having studied design and photography, Jolonch does not hesitate to define himself as an autodidact by vocation. His interest in photography and photographic montage dates back to his childhood, when his father gave him an airbrush with which he began to make some images that he then used to decorate cassette tapes and other elements of his daily life. Despite this, it was the arrival of digital photography that sparked his interest in photography, since it offered him the possibility of being able to construct fictional images from real images.
Oriol Jolonch practices photography, but he does not use it to capture reality, but rather to construct unreal images, impossible scenarios that transport the spectator to an almost dreamlike universe or, as he calls them, "invented realities". Through these scenes, lo fotogràf invites the viewer to stop and wonder about the story they conceal or to imagine it. The viewer can, through them, reinterpret reality or simply let himself be carried away by the beauty of his compositions and forget the line that delimits reality and fiction.
Jolonch's images, the fruit of intense prior reflection, raise one of the questions that has been asked most often throughout the history of philosophy: what is reality? Where does it begin and where does it end? Starting from this philosophical basis, Jolonch surprises the spectator time and again, who feels transported to an alternative everyday life with a strong metaphorical charge.
Jolonch draws on different precedents that, throughout history, have questioned the limits of reality, from Greek and Roman mythology to Lewis Carrol's Alice in Wonderland, examples of how fiction coexists with reality, blurring the boundaries between the two.
It should also be noted that, as with Surrealism, certain symbols are often repeated and reappear insistently in Jolonch's images. These are elements such as the idea of dreams, the presence of insects, dolls or animals, references to characters from fantastic literature, the concept of metamorphosis or transformation, the forest, the sinister tone or the construction of metaphors. The artist presents us with this whole range of symbologies thanks to which we can navigate through his universe and explore the images he presents us with.
In short, Jolonch leaves nothing to chance, his is an aesthetic and philosophical challenge, his images, often disturbingly beautiful, are an invitation to reflection. Jolonch takes us by the hand and leads us through images that, by not leaving us indifferent, question the reality in which we live and its limits. In other words, in the words of the artist himself, they lead us to confuse reality and fiction.