The Colombian Alfonso Bonilla is a multimedia designer and a photographer, able to combine together his passions for graphic design and photography, showing instants of hyper-modern times in a more colorful and pleasant way.
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Originally born in Colombia, in 1968, Alfonso Bonilla spent many years of his artistic career teaching design and photography in Southeast Asia, particularly in China and Singapore. He is not only a photographer, but he is also a multimedia designer, with an unbelievable talent to bring together his two passions in order to create uncommon pictures.
For the sake of photography, he carried on research and experiments regarding contemporary photography and its possibilities and opportunities as a pictorial language of expression, capable of representing detailed and imperceptible instants of modern life.
Precisely, Bonilla uses a particular method to produce a portrait of the reality, combining together the technological tools of graphic design with a particular image exposure, in addition to overlays and a subjective configuration of the composition of each piece. In this way, Bonilla aims to communicate its message, proposing a restructuring of reality through various ideas, marked by vibrant and chromatic richness. Moreover, with his photographs, he seeks to show the modern world, in constant and perpetual movement and change, in a more bright and charming way.
Bonilla’s pictorial language is extraordinary, original and inspired by his culture. His work seeks to easily connect and communicate with the audience and the result is surprising.
As it is shown in “Williamsburg Bridge”, Bonilla loves depicting different moments of the modern life, creating snapshot of bridges, buses, buildings or squares, which are all elements and infrastructures attributable to modern cities.
“Williamsburg Bridge” represents the suspension bridge which crosses the East River in New York City. It seems to be in movement or to be repeated countless times, such that it is difficult to identify every single part which composes the city view. The city depicted is immersed in the soft and cold light, which can be ascribable to the sunrise or to the cold sunset of winter days.
Also in “Public Library NYC”, the photographer used this unlimited repetition of the single parts of the subject represented, that in this case is the Public Library of New York City. Additionally, in front of the monumental building, there are many people, many of which are probably books’ lovers. Here Bonilla used eye-catching colors, as red, yellow, green and blue, which seem to cover different parts of the picture without any precise guideline or order.
Hence, Alfonso Bonilla’s love for research and experimentation led to the creation of unique photographs, incorporating together different methods and techniques, producing pictures which are appreciate from the audiences, eager for images that manage to move their day amid the global screen in which we live.
Cover image: Alfonso Bonilla. Public Library NYC, 2016. Courtesy of Eran Gallery
Written by Kooness
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