I have always been fascinated by things that are seen to be scary. A lot of people create beauty out of so many emotions, except anything horror related. People tend to stretch the horror into something so disturbing it becomes gross and appears lost. I have never been able to find an artist who shares similar feelings on horror, until I found Christopher Ryan Mckenny. He is a surreal photographer that has shocked the world with his photographs. He is able to capture beautiful imagery expressed by horror emotions. I immediately loved his work just like the rest of the world. His name grew quickly in 2012 after capturing photos of himself. This picture is of his body sitting in a chair with a sheet draped over his head. He edited his body out of the picture leaving only his head in the picture. This creates an eerie image of a ghostly figure. The indentions of his face lets us know someone is there. One of the reasons I liked him so quickly is this picture. I have always found it strange that we associate a ghost with a sheet and that it has been spread like a virus to be seen as scary.
Most of his works involve fabric to express horrific emotion but capturing the image in a pleasing way. He uses faceless emotionless images for an uneasy feel. This is used in many horror films such as: Michael Myers in Halloween, Jason in Friday the 13th, Scream, Leatherface, and many others. There is no wonder his creations caught so many people’s attention.
Hiswork in not just about horror. He also gets a lot of his inspiration from hischildhood whether it be nightmares or events that occurred. This makes his workvery relatable, because everyone has had some form of emotional terror as achild. I also draw a lot of inspiration from my past experiences. One piece hedid really spoke to me. I researched the photo and I found more reason to likehis work. Even though I had my own emotions toward the photo, I had no idea thephotograph had such a relatable meaning. He had captured a picture of a girl’schildhood sadness and memory and made it something for everyone to see. Theemotion of years and years was crammed in to one picture of a father beingabsent from his kid’s life and trying to come back in to that child’s life. Mostof the male figures in his pictures are of him like in this one. He does notonly capture images of horror and unsettling emotion. He also creates picturesthat appear to be out of a fantasy novel. Though the image could appear to notbe something dark and depressing. He could have a dark emotional inspirationbehind all of his art works. The viewers may never know he could be expressing traumatizingemotions, because of the way he captures the beauty in horror letting people gettheir own emotional feel.
Christopher McKenny – Andrew Tate – 2D Design
Works Cited
McKenny, Christopher. “Work.” Christopher McKenny, Christopher McKenny, 2014,https://christopher-mckenney.format.com/work#0.
McKenny, Christopher. “Another Horror Story For You Hidden Fears in Christopher Mckenney’s Project.” Bird in Flight, Bird in Flight, 2018, https://birdinflight.com/inspiration/project/another-horror-story-for-you-hidden-fears-in-christopher-mckenney-s-project.html.