“When was the last time you did a Google image search for ‘landscape’? The results will contain glorifying pictures that beg to be paired with inspirational quotes. Conformist and conventional, such depictions are less about real landscapes than the feelings they are meant to evoke. The algorithms of popular taste and fantasy mirror the notions of the sublime that took hold in western art in the 18th century. When you take a picture, you shrink the subject down into something flat and small. I’m trying to bring it back to life.” For the Landscape Sublime series, Anastasia Samoylova (b. 1984) searched through online image libraries with various buzz words: desert, glacier, tropic, storm, forest, waterfall, mountain. She then collated the results: turning copyright-free images into collages. These constructivist images mimic the aesthetics of Tumblr and Flickr pages, questioning how we form an understanding of natural phenomena through the digital age. anasamoylova.com.

Image Credits:
1. Anastasia Samoylova, Cliffs (2018). Courtesy of the artist.
2. Anastasia Samoylova, Forests (2014). Courtesy of the artist.
3. Anastasia Samoylova, Aspens (2013). Courtesy of the artist.
4. Anastasia Samoylova, Tropics (2014). Courtesy of the artist.
5. Anastasia Samoylova, Rainbows (2014). Courtesy of the artist.
6. Anastasia Samoylova, Greener Grass (2014). Courtesy of the artist
5. Anastasia Samoylova, Glaciers (2015). Courtesy of the artist.