The Charm The Fury 2017

Curator: This is Robert Sammelin’s digital artwork, "The Charm The Fury," created in 2017. I am fascinated by its composition. The artist has put together some great detail. What’s your first impression? Editor: Whoa! Intense. My immediate reaction? Slightly unsettling but, undeniably, vibrant. I keep getting sucked into those eyes. The stark skull form seems lifted right from some neon-lit fever dream! Curator: Right! Look at how Sammelin blends seemingly contradictory elements; death and fury. But with such vibrant pop-art colours! Consider that this work employs digital techniques, likely blurring the lines between traditional illustration and more contemporary digital workflows. Editor: Absolutely! It's grotesque but… also playful. Those splashes remind me a little bit of street art or edgy comics. The colours work to make something disturbing... visually engaging? It makes you wonder about its potential impact and reach across different communities. Curator: That’s astute. And I see connections to broader movements, like examining consumerism through graphic and digital production and perhaps challenging the traditional understanding of artistic skill, by using such technologies. Editor: Totally. This fusion of macabre imagery and, frankly, candy-coloured aesthetics almost makes me feel like I'm looking at a poster for the end of the world. And yet, I kinda dig it. Like it is a strange reflection on our strange world, with our bizarre behaviours. It's not just looking at death; it's staring death right in those swirling hypnotic eyes. Curator: Indeed. In “The Charm The Fury,” Sammelin presents the familiar form of death with immediacy by inviting viewers into a confrontation with their own mortality. This work provides a clear and vibrant reflection on death through pop aesthetics and accessible digital artistic production. Editor: Yeah. Ultimately, I find "The Charm The Fury" strangely, compellingly human, or perhaps inhuman, in a world drenched in over-saturated aesthetics, maybe what remains of that "human element" starts screaming back. A good memento mori for our digital age, really.