Above: Impact by Erik Johansson

It’s day 4 of 5 Days of Photography! I’ve chosen another incredible current artist today: Swedish 31-year-old Erik Johansson. With tens of millions of hits on his YouTube videos and exhibitions and clients all over the world, it’s pretty safe to say that Erik is a successful artist. He’s a great example of someone who has turned a hobby into a flourishing career.

Erik Johansson, a young computer engineering student from Sweden, has been taking the blogosphere by storm by producing heavily manipulated photographs which invert aesthetics as we understand them, inspired by MC Escher and surrealist artists. Aged just 25, and due to complete his Masters in Interactive Design in under a month, he has already been bombarded with offers of work following a wave of interest from blogs and design magazines after he published his innovative photographic work on his website. Instead of shying away, as some photographers do, from revealing the intense levels of Photoshop work done on the images he produces, Johansson is proud of the technique he has developed and says it is “somehow different from other kinds of art”. – Independent

Most of the figures which appear in Erik Johansson’s work are himself, his friends or his family.

“I get my inspiration from artists rather than photographers. MC Escher, Dali and Rene Magritte and other old fashioned artists mainly.” – Erik Johansson

Well I think it’s safe to say that Erik has great taste in art!