Franz Szony: Dreamworks

Through all barriers, there is one thing that humans generally revere: ART. Music, visual art or dance, whatever your art of choice is, most societies have placed a high value in creativity. It can bring people together, which is where Franz Szony finds his voice.

“My intent is to contribute to the universal language. Art,” the artist explained on his official website. The ethereal images Szony creates are found in dreams. The artist is inspired by what he dreams at night and keeps a dream journal close at hand. As a result, his bed is full of sketches and notes, disorganized pieces of art soon to be created.

“The worlds and characters I’ve dreamt have inspired both minute details, as well as entire works of art, both aesthetically and emotionally,” Szony said with Beautiful Decay, an art magazine. Szony’s pieces are multidimensional. The works aren’t just paintings on a canvas or framed photographs. Szony builds each detail. He finds the models, costumes and builds the set. Each intricate detail of his art has a purpose. This isn’t just art for art’s sake, but a dialogue where the viewer is active in the message.

“The lush costumes and sets I create are meant to evoke a nostalgic feeling in the viewer – an image from ‘times past.’ The symbolism is revealed through props, and the emotion through the characters,” the artist said on his website.

His work seems otherworldly. “Lush” is the most accurate way to describe Szony’s pieces. The set designs are works of art by themselves. The models are often scantily dressed, donning a crown of alligators, shells or even tentacles. Listening to the description, his art should be scary. The images are usually sepia filtered with darker undertones, but creepy doesn’t even apply here. The antique styled images are, like the artist intended, nostalgic. There’s a hint of tragic beauty. As far as the technical side goes, Szony keeps most of his post-production close to the chest. For some, this is where simple pictures turn into art.

“Without revealing too much of my ‘magic,’ I usually tell people I treat my photography the same way vintage animation was created. In the old days of animation, one frame consisted of many different cells layered on top of one another (background, mid, character, vignette, etc) to make a scene. I create very much the same way, assembling the scene in different sections and overlapping each photo in the computer after,” he explained to the blog Eclectix Arts via culture/travel/business magazine 429. Because there is so much involved, Szony spends a lot of time making his art come to life. It’s a full, intense process to create one of these pieces.

“Each photograph takes me anywhere between several weeks to several months to create and set up. I sketch out design ideas before each photo, and then a blueprint before anything is made,” Szony said in Eclectix Arts via 429.

Szony’s baroque and classical images are given a contemporary spin. The images are almost comforting, bringing sentimental to an understatement.

-Geneva Toddy