JAN OLIEHOEK

A photo manipulator who uses stock photographs to piece or manipulate the images, making the final piece look very bizarre, yet real.

The first image is called "Pickled Foetus." The piece shows stacked, glass jars full of pickles, peppers, lemons, and other fruits and vegetables that were canned, taking up the entire space. This sheets of cardboard is between each stack of jars and water or juice fills each jar. The colors that are mostly used are red, yellow, and green. Three jars are fully showing, while twelve jars are partly shown. Some jars show parts of stickers but nothing you can read. To the left of the center jar there is a human fetus crammed in a jar. It is a fleshy pink color with a black necklace around its neck and black bracelets on each wrist. The fetus is not full term but does have eyes, a nose, a mouth, arms and legs. Two pinkish stickers are on the front of the jar with a cursive name or something written but is too small to read.

When first glancing at the image you don't actually realize the fetus in the jar but when you do realize what it is, it shocks you. The fetus in the jar is obviously out of place with the canned pickles. This image looks like the viewer just stumbled upon the fetus while shopping for pickles at the local market. That is Oliehoek's whole purpose, to make the manipulated images look very strange and surreal to the viewer.

The second image,"Searaffe," shows a normal giraffe standing in the ocean. The image allows the viewer to see under the water and above the water. The neck and head of the giraffe are sticking out of the water while the rest of its body is under the water. Under the the water the picture is a blue tint with coral on the sea floor and an iceberg in the background. Above the water the picture is a brown/tan tint. Eleven penguins are behind the giraffe standing on the iceberg or some kind of rock. The sky is very dark brown and seems like it is going to storm. Way off in the distance an iceberg is on the left side of the picture.

Once again the giraffe is out of place, normally found in the warm savanna not near or "in" the arctic ocean. This is very confusing because the giraffe looks like it belongs in the photograph, like it could survive in the ocean. The image makes the viewer think "what if this were true?" The point behind the image is to think imaginatively while making the image look extremely believable!

I enjoy looking at his images they make you question whether it is true or not!!

To check out Jan Oliehoek's website click here