The close-up of Dorothy in Blue Velvet, the zoom into the severed ear in Blue Velvet, the zoom into a hole in a wall of a police interrogation room in Twin Peaks Series 2, the close-ups of characters in Mulholland Drive – and many others – all of these are evidence of David Lynch’s fascination with making the familiar strange through extreme close-up. Lynch’s sense of the beauty, strangeness and danger being ever present and lying latent below the surface of daily life and appearances, is a constant in his film work and (to a lesser extent) his photography. It does not, however, occur in the paintings, drawings and prints. Taking a tiny fragment of a real object and making a painting of that is time consuming and the result is often unsatisfactory, with the art appearing semi-abstract or unrealised. In photography, the extreme close-up has been a staple of art photography since the Surrealism of Man Ray and Brassaï.
Lynch is certainly interesting. But I would suggest he's a Dadaist and works with emptiness and irony. Humans crave mystery but he removes the story-telling, making him a Modernist.
Digital Nudes by David Lynch
Lynch is certainly interesting. But I would suggest he's a Dadaist and works with emptiness and irony. Humans crave mystery but he removes the story-telling, making him a Modernist.