All images by Luka Klikovac. Used with Creative Commons permission.
What can you do with ink and water? Not much, you may think, but in the hands of someone with a creative mind, whimsical abstract images can actually be borne out of them. Case in point: “Demersal,” a series by Belgrade, Serbia-based photographer Luka Klikovac.
Luka’s body of work veers towards experimental, conceptual, and abstract, and “Demersal” is a perfect example of that. In “Demersal,” Luka “explores the possibilities of his creative expressions.” By playing with only those two liquids and light, he was able to create psychedelic effects that “reveal realistic and tangible space where wondrous motions of strange forms occur.” Through this, he was able to create illusions that stimulate the imagination.
However, in the end, it’s the viewer who decides what he sees. It’s very much like looking at Rorschach inkblots or even up at clouds for shapes conjured by the mind. In the split second that the ink drops and disperses in the water, Luka was able to capture wisps and blobs that look like jellyfish floating by, smoke, odd-looking creatures of the deep, and even mushrooms poised as if they’re standing or about to sing! Some are beautiful, funny; others, just a wee bit haunting if you stare at them long enough.
In case you’re wondering, demersal, the word, is an adjective that refers to creatures, typically fish, that live close to the floor of the sea or a lake. Which means that yes, Luka couldn’t have picked a more appropriate name for his beautiful series.
The author is fascinated with the diversity of surreal depths and spaces created by unpredictable laws of motion of colored fluids. His imagination, artistic sensibility and knowingly caused “randomness” in a glass of water, lead viewers to an endless adventure, full of surreal and timeless scenes.
When experimenting with light Luka Klikovac creates an illusion of the polar illumination that springs out from hidden fountains. Various hints and implies occur in the eyes of the beholder – materialized visions of the distant galaxies, stardust and miraculous fluorescent life forms of the Jules Verne’s’ ocean depths, as well as images of brightly colored organic elements. – Branimir Karanović
What do you see when you look at these colorful, ink and water abstract photographs?
Be sure to see the full “Demersal” series on Luka Klikovac’s Behance portfolio. Meanwhile, for more similar work we’ve featured previously, you might want to check out “Plumes” by Andrei Duman and house music culture company FLOW’s logo by Studio Hands.