Ffo is a Moscow-based artist who creates beautiful, strange and surreal collages from anatomical illustrations, classical art, 1950’s pop culture images and Art Nouveau prints.

What little is known about this anonymous artist comes directly from the answers given to questions asked by fans. From these we learn Ffo studied at art college for three years before turning his/her talents to creating collages.

I’m focusing on making collages cuz it’s a really great way to express yourself, for me it’s also a symbol of contemporary world – a hard mix of different people, styles, cultures, eras, like there are no borders between art and reality anymore. It’s very beautiful, multi-layered, provocative and bizarre.

Ffo describes him/herself as “a stalker” who takes “inspiration [from] almost from everything” but mainly life:

[P]eople are my main inspiration, their appearance, relationships, conversations, feelings. Allmost all my works represent my own emotions and desires and means a lot for me.

Ffo makes paper collage with Paint Tool SAI to create fabulously surreal, disturbing yet highly charged images. Once a collage is finished, it is published online at the Ffo Art blog.

There is something about Ffo’s work that makes me think of the quote Francis Bacon famously used when describing his paintings as depicting “the brutality of fact.” By which he meant reworking reality by artificial means to create a more intense, visceral and yet utterly truer vision of the world. Though by different means there is something similar going on here in Ffo’s surreal, disturbing yet strangely beautiful artworks.
 

 

 
See more of Ffo’s strange and surreal collages, after the jump…