Playful Illusions Made from Household Objects

febrero 27, 2021

Playful Illusions Made from Household Objects

Helga Stentzel is a Russian-born visual artist and photographer based in London who creates whimsical optical illusions using ordinary things found around the house.

One of her recent ideas was to create farm animals using laundry hanging out on a clothesline.

Here are some of the other playful illusion photos Stentzel has shot so far:

Stentzel graduated from Saint Martin’s School of Art in London before starting out her career as an art director in the advertising industry. It was in that role that she learned the basics of branding, marketing, and strategic thinking.

Since then, Stentzel has combined her experience with her creativity to find success on social media. Her Instagram account, on which she regularly shares her creations, boasts over 150,000 followers at the time of this writing.

“I have a sketchbook where I write down and draw all ideas that come to my mind,” Stentzel tells Soundsnap. “This is like a little treasure box of mine. Some ideas take shape very quickly, whereas some others need more time to ‘ripen’.

“This means I keep coming back to them from time to time until they are good enough to be [captured on camera]. Once they are, I start thinking about the details. I always set out [shooting] with a solid concept in mind.”

A paint palette with paintbrushes made with eggs and bread.

Stentzel calls her illusions “household surrealism.” The artist tells Colossal that her idea came from her childhood in Siberia, when she would see things in and around her grandmother’s house. She’s also reportedly working on more farm animal illusions while braving below-freezing temperatures in Russia.