10 Dec 2024
Photography Exhibition
229 LAB invite's Giulia Grillo aka 'PETITE DOLL'
Surrealist photo artist 🫀
Giulia Grillo is an Italian photographic artist, currently living in London, known for her surrealist compositions as well as portraying herself as “Petite Doll” where she explores the depths of her imagination whilst she identifies what it means to be a woman today. Petite Doll seeks to take photography out of its conventional, comfortable, and objective role, manifesting and distorting intricate concepts in her work, from the unsettling to the cute, holding a mirror to contemporary society and its underlying fears and desires.
After studying for a Bachelor in Graphic Design at The Academy of Fine Arts in Italy and a Masters of Arts in UAL, always passionate about photography, Giulia decided to combine the idea of surrealism to transform herself into “grotesque characters” to push boundaries of what people imagine is possible. She creates her own props and sets with the use of polymer clay, SFX prosthetics, resin, plaster etc. often collaborating with artists and sculptures from around the world.
Despite the seemingly photoshopped appearance, she meticulously crafts and composes every detail in her works, making only minor adjustments in post-production. Using a wide array of symbolic objects, from elaborate sculptures to everyday objects because she believes that real objectives give a sense of materiality that cannot be achieved digitally.
She has entered the video art and NFT space to expand the dreamlike dimensions for the worlds she creates.
Each work carries a whole manifestation of an intricate concept, raising the big question between what is real and what is not with otherworldly images, whilst defying beauty standards. Using opposites to create a visual balance such as beautiful & grotesque her pictures are able to provoke a different thought process for each viewer.
