Creatures Found is a photography series by Adam Thorman that seeks the animate in the inanimate, based on the belief that the world comes alive through the lens of pareidolia – the human tendency to see familiar shapes and patterns in the structures of inanimate things, such as seeing faces in clouds and monsters in shadows.
Thorman has always been sensitive to this phenomenon, often spotting anthropomorphic beings in objects such as rocks, tree stumps and fences. These ‘creatures’, as he calls them have appeared to him over the years while photographing landscapes, creeping unexpectedly into his field of vision. Until a few years ago he didn’t consciously look for them, but would occasionally ‘catch’ some. Creatures Found is a collection of the creatures he has encountered over the past 18 years.
Thorman is interested in giving the viewer the chance to have their own creative storytelling experience with each image. These creatures belong to the viewer as much as they do to him, because everyone will recognise their own creature, something familiar, something animal, something human, something real.
Adam Thorman is a US artist, photographer and educator who makes art about the landscape, abstracted. He creates and alters photographs, publishes books and collaborates on projects with writers and other artists. In his work the landscape is an interpretive space where meaning is flexible. He approaches the world with an eye towards animistic myth-making, intentionally unmooring the viewer to create unfamiliar realities out of the landscape.
