About Johnny

Johnny was most influenced by his father and the beautiful photographs he took. In 1994, his father created his own stock business and Johnny did whatever he was able to assist the venture; even shooting some on his own. At sixteen, he was most interested in shooting skateboarders, various live shows and landscapes.

       

When he went to college, his creative interests took him to music. Johnny studied and experimented with nearly everything he could get his hands on. While he continued to shoot occasionally, music and his degree in mathematics stayed his passion for years after graduation.
      
       
In 2004, Johnny's enthusiasm for photography is renewed as he begins exploring the beauties of the female form captured on film. Since then, he has taken a strong interest in absorbing as much technical information as he can find about cameras and studio equipment; continuously pushing his tools to their limitations.

       
 His work is continuously evolving as he explores new ideas, his world and the people around him through his lens.

 
       

 

About Michelle

The long story...

Michelle is an artist whose passionate vision is just as diverse and complex as her talent. As an adult, she is unlimited by medium. But she has been creating art since she was a young girl, rendering cartoon characters and drawings of her impressions of those around her. She began learning artistic technique from books and other artistic pieces at a young age. Never afraid to try her hand at a new method, she was always putting pencil to paper and creating images of people.

 

Entering into her teenage years, Michelle's talents improved. Cartoon characters became darker figures, but her interest in the human form remained. During this period of her life, she was introduced to the contrasting worlds of pin-up models and horror art. In these greatly divergent art forms she found a mixed passion, and began to combine them into collage pieces, presenting both the horrific and the beautiful within the same image. In these pieces, Michelle discovered her passion for the entirety of the human form, whether it is old, young, lovely, profane, or desiccated. Regardless of condition, all represented the same focus on people in her artistic vision.

 

As Michelle grew, she was given the gift of a camera, creating future diversity in her artistic pursuits. As a young woman, her tools were simple, but over time her vision required more refinement, and became more powerful as her skills improved. She moved from common toys of her youth to the complexity of a SLR. During this time, Michelle's love of photography blossomed, and her interest in the human form became even more pronounced.

 

Michelle's style of creating intriguingly disturbing and beautiful images is like the slow slice of a knife through flesh. The blood that wells forth can be grisly, but each individual drop can have the flush of a rose petal. Her manipulation of the photo-medium is influenced by many different artists such as David McKean and Olivia de Baradinis, but her style is hers alone.

 

Even as Michelle's interest in this new medium grew, she began taking her models to her canvas and exploring their lines through pencil, paint, and ink. Continuously reexamining and rediscovering her vision, she relentlessly explored her perspective of the human form. Delving into the darker shadows of life, she pulled bits of grotesque beauty, using the influences of her youth, tempered with the experiences of her adulthood.

 

Today, Michelle finds joy in pure creation. She continues to work in all of the mediums she has mastered over time. Whether the medium is in the form of paint, graphite, or film, she mixes them, melds them, and irreverently gives life to the  unconventional beauty she discovers in the human form.

 

Michelle works as a freelance photographer and artist in St. Louis, and is pursuing her BA in Sociology.

 

More stuff here: MichelleX.com