Creativity from Without

Lauren (Metro Series) Melanie Pullen

The artist Melanie Pullen is an excellent example of an artist who finds her creativity from without. She finds inspiration from the old LAPD crime scene photos of brutal female murders. She recreates these scenes and incorporates high fashion into them to give off that glamorous feeling despite the gruesomeness of the photo. She really embodies this concept of finding creativity from without because she went out and found something very unique to work with, and then upped it by using her own design aesthetics to make it into her own art work.

When I first saw Melanie Pullen at the Photographic Museum of Art in San Diego I was completely drawn to her photos because of the beautiful clothing she used in the photos. After a while I noticed what was going on in the image and how violent it was, and was completely in love with her way of turning horror into beauty. She has many series where she focuses in on a certain type of murder such as hanging, metro murders, prostitute murders and much more but no matter how disgusting the image is, the woman always looks elegant. It’s as if she has given these murdered women a second chance in the way that she dresses them up. Pullen not only finds her creativity in old crime scenes, but in fashion too. She really uses beautiful clothing from the top designers like Prada and Miu Miu, and by using these pieces of clothing; it allows her photos to be different from the original.