The following series of photos – “The High Life” – is by the London-based street artist Slinkachu:
Since 2006, mainly on the streets of London, Slinkachu has been “remodeling” train set characters, providing them with props, and arranging them so that passersby might see them. Up close, the situations are recognizable: semi-nude women frolic in a ‘tub’ (above, for instance), while a butler brings them champagne. But from far away (which in the case of a project this small means from a distance of ten feet), the situations are not only unrecognizable, but are also unseen.
It’s the possibility that these works might remain unseen that contributes to their pathos; in and of themselves they’re ordinary. Some of the works are ‘charged’ in that they present, without irony, situations that might trouble or offend us, but most depict scenes that are everyday – an old man painting, or a young couple on a picnic. They don’t announce themselves, or declare their own importance, which conversely seems to endow them with importance. The ‘tub,’ for instance, is a bottle cap, but the women don’t seem to know it. They are unselfconscious, earnest, having a good time. We could destroy them in an instant, or we could let them be.