German artist Matthieu Bourel finds old images of well known and beloved faces such as Gregory Peck and Yul Brenner and transforms them into surreal art pieces. Bourel says,
“I like to evoke a fake history or inspire nostalgia for a period in time that never truly existed.The obsession of collecting disparate images from books, old magazines and other found material becomes as much a part of the emerging image as the mark-making... A piece often becomes about the search and desire to combine those emergent narrative symbols that seem charged with a familiar yet distant emotion.”
Bourel lists famed surrealist painter René Magritte as one of his influences; I think hints of Magritte's imagery abound here. Visit Bourel's website to see more of his work and purchase prints.