It's time for another edition of THE ART OF HORROR, and today we're featuring an artist from the world of photography, whose frightening and controversial work is both beautiful and disturbing.
I think of my photographs as pieces of candy reads the website, and it shows. In deliberate contrast to the common murky-and-dark horror aesthetic, Joshua Hoffine’s photos are brightly lit with a cheerful palette. “I want the pictures to be as clean and pretty as possible,” he says, to convince eyes to linger as if savoring a sweet, gradually registering the horrors surrounding his golden-haired little girls in pastel colored clothes... ashen-skinned arms reaching from behind the couch, the clawed hand on a balloon-bearing clown, or the giant spider crouched in the attic, ready to pounce.
Inspired by Stephen King’s observation in Danse Macabre that “horror stories are modern fairy-tales,” Hoffine’s catalog of childhood nightmares, collectively known as "After Dark My Sweet", serves “to remind adults of basic fears; a mouth that will eat you, arms that will grab you and drag you away.” The photos contain some familiar iconography (scary clown, candy-bearing witch, cartoonish red devil, a half-buried hag that will look familiar to any Evil Dead fan), but the minutiae and compositions have a sneaky way of guiding the eye and surprising you. Spend several minutes staring at “Wolf,” a distressing action shot of a screaming half-naked child crouched on a staircase as a snarling wolf bears down upon her, and you finally notice the male human hand in place of a front paw. Pictures like “Wolf” and the disturbing “Closet” have earned some hate-mail for the Kansas City-based photographer, whose young models are none other than his own daughters. “People are really concerned for my kids,” he says with a goodnatured laugh, “but I’m a father first and a photographer second.”
Hoffine’s effects are practical and directed at the camera rather than the children (it seems difficult to get scared at a demon that from your angle looks like a guy in blue jeans). While cast and crew are solely family and friends and the props and effects borrowed or created cheaply, the craft on his detailed sets and makeup is never less than impressive. Hoffine’s photography is self-financed, supported by print sales on his website. “I turned my back on a very successful career as a wedding photographer to starve and do this stuff,” he chuckles.
A lifelong fan of horror films, you can see Hoffine’s inspirations reflected in his work. Among his favorites are Mario Bava’s MASK OF SATAN, with its lush visuals, and the original POLTERGEIST, which he watched in the theater as a child. “I still can’t believe kids got to see that, a PG-rated movie where a guy rips the flesh off his face. After that, we were all completed preoccupied with POLTERGEIST, it was every game I played with my sisters, always ending with one of them getting sucked into the closet.” Horror appreciation runs in the Hoffine family, with Joshua’s parents and younger sisters all “big fans of my work.” Considering the expressive acting and apparent professionalism of his daughters, they may even have a future in the genre. “I do have this fantasy of taking my daughter Chloe to conventions so she can sign autographs, like a real scream queen.”
Hoffine’s elaborate productions for his photographs suggest he has potential as a narrative horror filmmaker. While he has completed a short film, BLACK LULLABY, and has aspirations towards a feature, Hoffine finds a different reward in still photography, unique to his chosen medium. “Trying to create suspense in a static image is difficult, but if I achieve that, it’s not like in a movie where the scene continues after the scares and there’s resolution. In a photograph, nothing will break that tension.”
To check out more of Joshua's fantastic work, be sure to visit his website.
Comments (5)
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|2009-04-04 22:04:34 shannon
i rly love this art. im older now but still have these childhood fears. there amazing depictions and i think its fine that he includes his girls.
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