The second artist I want to introduce to you is H. R. Giger. I guess we all know his works – but maybe not him.H.R. Giger
He is recognized as one of the world’s most well known artists of Fantastic Realism and he achieved international fame with his work on Ridley Scott’s movie ‘Alien’. For his designs of the film’s title creature and its otherworldly environment H. R. Giger received the 1980 Academy Award for ‘Best Achievement for Visual Effects’.
Hans Rüdiger Giger was born 1940 in Chur, Switzerland/Europe. He studied architecture and industrial design at the School of Applied Arts in Zurich and by 1964 he was producing his first artworks. By discovering airbrush he also found his own unique freehand painting style. That was the beginning of the creations of many of his most well known works – the surrealistic Biomechanical dreamscapes.
For director Ridley Scott’s film Alien, Giger's third and most famous book, Necronomicon served as the visual inspiration. This was his first film assignment and he designed the film’s title character and the stages of its lifecycle, plus the film’s the otherworldly sets. The result: he earned the Oscar for the ‘Best Achievement in Visual Effects’ in 1980. Giger has since worked on other films such as Poltergeist II, Alien3 and Species.
H. R. Giger also worked on sculptures and album covers – for example Debbie Harry, Emerson Lake and Palmer, SFX. He also created his own total environment, first the Tokyo Giger Bar, than a Giger Bar in his hometown Chur, Switzerland. And in Gruyeres, Switzerland there is his museum, and a bar. Giger’s design for this bar emphasizes the pre-existing Gothic architecture of the 400 year old space with the giant skeletal arches covering the vaulted ceiling. Together with the bar’s fantastic stony furniture it evokes the building’s original medieval character giving the space a church-like feeling. Being in this extraordinary setting makes you feel like being transported into the remains of a mutated futuristic civilization.
The movie-designer and artist from Switzerland is one of the most famous contemporary representant of phantastic-realistic art. The perseverative theme of his fascinating works are full of scary-beauty and the biomechanical. Its a kind of coalescence from technic and mechanic to something very creative and surrealistic.
See more of Giger's work and a list of projects here:
http://openbooksociety.com/article/artist-profile-h-r-giger/
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