More insane – and insanely good – work from photographer JP Bonino

We were first introduced to the work – and the insane universe – of Uruguay-born and now Paris-based photographer JP Bonino as part of The Dream Team project back at the end of 2017. Shown to us by multidisciplinary and equally mad creative Max Siedentopf, JP made us a series of photographs where subjects had snakes for belts, eyes were kept open with matchsticks and wannabe brides flew through the air with their sights set on the bouquet. In the year that’s followed JP’s work has continued to be as bonkers as ever, particularly in a new series of promotional images for Argentinian musician, Louta.

A friend of JP’s, it’s clear Louta went to the photographer to get the most madness out of him possible, resulting in a series of images that aren’t your usual moody, black and white band shots against a brick wall. With the ideas fully borne out of their friendship, the pair settled on the idea of “merging real and also virtual elements that interact with him,” JP tells It’s Nice That.

The focus of each of the images crafted by JP is the musician’s face, with the idea “that he had to go through different challenges to have a monument made from his face,” explains the photographer. The results include an album sleeve with pegs attached to Louta’s face from all angles, an actual ceramic bust of him, an image of him pulling his left cheek morphed so it’s extra floppy and covered in honey with one bee dangerously close to his eye.

This body of work from JP is also one of the first we’ve seen him from which uses digital techniques to enhance the insane happenings of his work, including a giant butterfly swarming around one image and a dinosaur in another. “We thought the idea was funny, we had a good time and we had a lot of fun watching Louta go through those absurd situations.” It’s safe to say we’ve had a lot of fun viewing them too.