Born in 1971, of Austrian descent, she is nicknamed "the Puppet master". That is because in her images, she creates a very surrealistic ambience, where she turns her models into puppets and dolls. This technique is very original, not many artists apply it to their works, since it gives a "false impression of things". As I was looking at the various themes and exposition works in her website, I discovered various photographs that really interested me, just because of their weirdness and peculiarity. Alexandra Hager is a full-time professional photographer that produces photography for magazine collections: modelling taken to a different dimension...
The images that interested me the most weren't the ones having to do with fashion shows or magazine covers... I was intrigued by the way she transformed children into simple, "pertified" dolls, with no voice. All this time I've been analysing how each artist transmits emotions, whether personal or not, and what a great job he/she did at showing those feelings, but now, in the case of Hager, she tries to transmit feelings through a surrealistic world, where emotions are trapped and it's hard to release them. This children are trapped inside the fairytales they were told before bedtime, inside adventurous passages, risky situations, life during the Victorian era. The kids appearing in her images are all dressed appropriately for the era, placed in the most haunting settings, which is why in some, the children make faces of either anger or horror... It is quite creepy to see children, that are usually happy and honest, expressing emotions, suddenly be standing still, to such extent that you are not sure whether they're real or just perfectly made dolls. Hager's photographs are so surrealistic, that your sight perception tricks you, thinking that they are paintings... In some, she introduces certain elements of watercolor and acrylic, but afterall, they are welll- edited photographs ...I find her work so astonishing, different from any other artist...
That is the way I perceive this.
Below you have some of her best works (in my opinion, always...), chosen from her personal website.
Enjoy :)
The images that interested me the most weren't the ones having to do with fashion shows or magazine covers... I was intrigued by the way she transformed children into simple, "pertified" dolls, with no voice. All this time I've been analysing how each artist transmits emotions, whether personal or not, and what a great job he/she did at showing those feelings, but now, in the case of Hager, she tries to transmit feelings through a surrealistic world, where emotions are trapped and it's hard to release them. This children are trapped inside the fairytales they were told before bedtime, inside adventurous passages, risky situations, life during the Victorian era. The kids appearing in her images are all dressed appropriately for the era, placed in the most haunting settings, which is why in some, the children make faces of either anger or horror... It is quite creepy to see children, that are usually happy and honest, expressing emotions, suddenly be standing still, to such extent that you are not sure whether they're real or just perfectly made dolls. Hager's photographs are so surrealistic, that your sight perception tricks you, thinking that they are paintings... In some, she introduces certain elements of watercolor and acrylic, but afterall, they are welll- edited photographs ...I find her work so astonishing, different from any other artist...
That is the way I perceive this.
Below you have some of her best works (in my opinion, always...), chosen from her personal website.
Enjoy :)