Dina Day is Russian born, but spent her early childhood in South Africa and has been in the Greater Vancouver area since she was 12 years old. Dina has lived an eclectic life immersed in theatre, video games, make-up school, retail, modelling, exotic dancing and most recently- photography and digital art. We are thrilled to showcase some of Dina's work on our studio walls, presenting her very first showcase!
Dina's showcase will be at Liquid Amber until January 2017.
Dina is also offering photoshoots for $350 (makeup included) for 3 fully edited photos aka.digital artwork (This price will only be available until the end of 2016).
Artist interview:
As this is your first showcase/exhibit, what was the preparation like of putting together your first series?
"The hardest part of it was choosing which artwork to display because I have a very large body of work and I love 99% of it, I could have easily chosen at least 75 more pieces that are strong enough to display along side with the art that I chose. The pieces that I did choose I hold very dear to my heart, with each girl in the images playing a very important part of my life. This is one of the reasons why I have a photo book located at Liquid Amber with 200 - 4X6 of the majority of images that I have created; available to be selected and ordered in a variety of sizes of any which one of them for purchase such as; Rachel Rampage, Samantha Mack, Lola Frost and Claudia Rylie (and a plethora of other persons and performers)
The other difficult part for me was that I didn't have a printing shop when I started this process but one of my best friends had an amazing experience with Fritzworks (http://www.fritzworks.com/) located in Burnaby and I decided to contact them and let me tell you, this shop will forever be my printshop, as an artist who has never had work printed and someone who is just starting to understand sizes and ratios to do with printing I was so happy with their services, it's so personable, professional and also a very laid back experience. Chris and Jeff went above and beyond to help me make my vision come to life. I really can't say enough about how stoked I am to be working with this printshop."
When you are doing a photoshoot, is it during the shooting process that you have the vision of what the end result will look like? Or does that happen before the shoot, or during the editing process?
"Both, in very different ways. For me, it's a step by step process as the end result is created with every individual stage. When I am shooting I am inspired by the physical presence of the model herself, the backgrounds, props, wardrobe, makeup, poses, facial expressions, also if I have specific references and inspiration from another artists work or another models poses etc. I am also thinking about the elements I need in the photo to later be used in the editing process to make my editing life easier.
When I sit down to edit I not only see the model but I start to see myself through her, so really I am creating an image of myself through the model in the artwork. As I start working in photoshop other elements come into play like the music I'm listening to, music videos I'm watching, it really could be anything, once I start getting inspired theres no stopping me =P"
How did you find your way to processing photos into digital art? Did you take courses? Are you self taught? Where did your style emerge from?
"I first was exposed to photoshop through my brother who is an artist as well. I was also fortunate enough to have a CAD (computer aided design) program at my high school in which I learned the basics of photoshop. Years later I dated a photographer when I was solely a makeup artist who would create more artistic images he took of the creative makeup that I would do. I learned a lot of layering and colouring from him and unfortunately when that relationship ended (2012) I was at a loss as a makeup artist who wanted to quit my trade because no one made images quite like him and I was not really that interested in doing basic makeup, so about a year later I had a chance to buy my first camera off of a best friend (Which I named Lucy The Nikon D300) I decided I would take matters into my own hands; photograph and create the kind of photos that I wanted. I could finally control 95% of everything in the image.
Because I have had a few very meaningful psychedelic experiences I draw a lot from my own imagination, the universe, beauty, destruction, the struggle between light and dark, good and evil and how I perceive it as well as and i also am a huge fan of mirroring, distortion, high contrast and texture. I would say I am mostly self-taught just because my style has emerged from a lot of experimentation.
I used to call what I do photography but the more in depth I got into my editing style I couldn't really call it that anymore. I do use a photograph as my base but everything else is very altered and surreal and to tell you the truth I'm really not interested in reality. This is my way of creating a character out of the model I am photographing."
Do you have any reoccurring elements or ideas that tend to inspire your art?
"Short answer; it could be anything and everything.
My friends and all the beautiful, strong, empowered women that I know all light a fire inside my soul. I just want to make epic, epic images of the people around me.
All current happenings; music is one of the biggest, but also my mood, things around me, the movies I've been watching, video games (warcraft), all things fantasy, angels and demons, the battle between light and dark, nature. Pretty much everything."
What are your goals for the future?
"All the things! More showcases around the city and hopefully the world!
One of the things I would like to do sooner rather than later is a coffee table book of all of my work, I'd like to get that done in the next year or two for sure. In general tho, I just want to progress and learn more and more, its something I need, evolution, I get bored so easily if I have to do the same things over and over again, I constantly have to play around with my own editing styles, you can usually tell when I'm going through a certain phase of something new in edits whether its a reoccurring colour or pattern or crop, then it all tends to meld together as I adopt certain things as a staple in all of my edits, sometimes I can't decide on an edit and then it becomes 2, 3, 4 different variations of the same photo."
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Links:
Full body of work --> www.facebook.com/dinadaymakeup (click like and choose the "see first" option to make sure you see all Dina's new posts and not miss any)
Follow her personal Facebook --> www.facebook.com/Who.is.Dina.Day
Instagram/twitter: @who_is_dina_day
Email: Dinadaymakeup@gmail.com
Phone number: 604-753-7068
