Driving At Night by Kevin Van Aelst

A quick glance at Kevin Van Aelst's photos will probably not do you much good. His subtle images bring inanimate objects to life in a far more sophisticated manner than their commercial applications would suggest. Kevin creates simple tableaux that reveal his witty disposition toward everyday things in space.

Like the surrealist artist Méret Oppenheim and her furry teacup, Kevin uses his objects to hint toward their fantastic possibilities. As Kevin puts it:

The images aim to examine the distance between the 'big picture' and the 'little things' in life—the banalities of our daily lives, and the sublime notions of identity and existence.

While some say Kevin plays with visual accuracy and our perception of truth, perhaps he is actually revealing the intrinsic natures of this minutiae. In this photographic reconsideration, these objects are simultaneously themselves as well as another object that exists within. This is why crumpled laundry can form a heart, and gummy worms can organize themselves as a genome. He makes it clear for viewers to recognize the endless possibilities of everything around us. In a way, Kevin's work points toward the dizzy philosophy of I Heart Huckabees and its existential mantra that if you look close enough you can't tell where my nose ends and space begins.