Marlies Plank
About Marlies:
Marlies Plank is a self-taught photographic artist and graphic designer whose work surveys the surreal. Through amalgamated digital photography and post production techniques, Plank explores humanistic ideas and the rich emotional spectrum conveyed through superimposing vibrant colours, patterns, and designs over her photographs.
Born in Vienna in 1981, Plank has exhibited extensively throughout Europe and North America at galleries including the Museum of Photography (Los Angeles) and Pavlov's Dog Gallery (Berlin). Her commercial work for clients including Maison Valentino, Le Monde, Die Zeit, Seabourn Cruise Line and Harvard Business Review has been presented on billboards throughout Los Angeles.
Grand Image: How did you get your start in art?
MP: Actually by accident. I studied Social and Cultural Anthropolgy and I took a photography class for documentary photography. For a short period I loved documenting different cultures, but gradually I became more interested in staging ideas which mostly came from dreams.
Grand Image: How did you develop your style?
MP: I sort of graduated from documentary photography to concept photography . For some ideas my budget actually forced me to experiment with Photoshop and other digital techniques as I certainly did not have a Annie Leibovitz budget to realize my ideas.
Over time although I still do mostly figurative art, things became more abstract and I still love to experiment with different styles and techniques.
Grand Image: Where are you from and how is that reflected in your work?
MP: I am from Vienna but I don´t think there is much Vienneseness in my work. I traveled a lot through India and South East Asia and I think that has influenced me a lot more than my hometown.
Grand Image: Tell us about your process. Where do your source images come from and how do you choose how to alter them?
MP: Usually it´s a mix of my own photos, 3d renders or graphics and some creative commons. The metropolitan collection of CC images was really a game changer. I had this idea to fuse old masters paintings with new techniques and their collection was extremely helpful to implement my 3d pink elephants and 3d brushstrokes into old masters paintings.
Grand Image: What is your current source of inspiration?
MP: Mostly I´m inspired by dreams and things that pop up when I stop for a minute and look around.
Grand Image: What does your artwork say about you as a person?
MP: It says I am very diverse, I like to experiment, and hopefully that I am open minded and cheerful.
Grand Image: What artists inspire you? What do you like about them?
MP: My all time favorite is Frida Kahlo. Although I must say when I discovered her work the first time I was a bit disturbed but fascinated at the same time. I think she is one of the few artists who is really true to herself and where I think actually her whole life is a piece of art itself.
Grand Image: If you could have your artwork hung anywhere in the world, where would you like that to be and why?
MP: A floating exhibition somewhere in the South Sea where people can visit the exhibition either by boat, kayak, or scuba dive there.
Grand Image: What is your favorite way to implement self care?
MP: I swim a lot and meditate each morning.
Grand Image: Please describe an artwork or series that was pivotal to your career.
MP: The artwork which helped me a lot to realize that art is actually what I want to do and I might be good enough, was the butterfly collage which was used by Valentino for their entire prefall 2014 collection. After seeing my work on top of coats, dresses, shoes, bikinis and packaging I thought this might actually work.
The other important artwork is a long-term series which I started in 2010 in Morocco. It’s a landscape series enhanced with surreal elements - giant soap bubbles floating through different idyllic landscapes.
