This new personal series by Kremer/Johnson just works on so many levels. It isn’t just an exercise in how faithfully it reproduces the iconic works of the renowned surrealist, Rene Magritte. It reminds us of what Magritte, who began his own career in advertising, understood early on: that great art, as well as great advertising, is all about how we define the essence of the big idea. For this series, sly additions or substitutions make these images modern and relevant all over again and at the same time, subtly demonstrate technical mastery. In Magritte’s The Inevitability of Mankind, for example, the man is painting an image of a bird; today, in the Kremer/ Johnson version, it’s a drone. All thirteen images in this series have a similar reference to modernity.
The series is proof that testing and personal projects drive a career forward. When asked whether or not all the hard work that went into the series has paid off, Neil Kremer says,”Absolutely! No advertising agency wants to see the commercial work we’ve done. They only care about our personal work. There aren’t any commercial jobs in our portfolio. It’s all personal work.”
The creativity and ingenuity it took to get these images should be apparent to any creative buyer. Add the production value and the personal motivation on display, and you have proof enough that Kremer/Johnson are capable of taking a creative project through every phase.
