“The sweeping label “cinematic” glues itself to the Durimel brother’s scenic, character-populated images. “I guess we started off in cinema and the movies that strike the most are — I’ve learned the exact meaning of this word recently — melodramatic,” explains Jalan…It’s a quality that the Durimel brothers try into their own output. “We’re becoming more interested in being less vague about what it is that we’re making,” the pair explain. “We realise that there is this interest in the art world for art that is really poetic and hard to understand.” Another surprising influence comes from Jibril, who cites Albert Einstein and his belief that “if you can’t explain it to a toddler, you don’t really understand it.”…
Jalan and Jibril’s shared portfolio of work is constantly changing as they purposefully journey down “a road less travelled.” “I read that book recently and the author talked about going towards uncertainty and that’s the way we’ve grown up definitely,” Jalan says. “We feel like the uncertain road is almost more of a comfort zone than a trip.” Their career has taken many different turning points, Wirth roots in a fashion blog they now describe as “really sort of cheesy”. Still, the blog taught the duo to “enjoy the field that it allows us as well”.
“So many times I feel like it might look like we wanted to play in the fashion game, or it might look like we want to get into the magazine world, but that was all just us trying to get into a place where we were given a platform to express ourselves,” Jalan says. For now though, the pair have taken a break from fashion-focused jobs after a difficult shoot last year that made them realise the only point of doing commercial work “is when it’s right for us”. Looking towards the future and everything they’ve learned through watching, reading and travelling, the Durimel brothers hope for their photographs to be viewed in an exhibition space, allowing them to “slowly get into the art-making process and making images with the same attention that a feature film would get,” explains Jibril. These future photographs will “definitely be theatrical with an actual narrative,” looking to “make images that talk in a sense, that almost need no words, that someone could see and completely understand the direction we’re going in.”
-It’s Nice That
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