Jada + David Parrish don't just take photographs. They build them.
Working at the intersection of photography, sculpture, and set design, the artist duo creates immersive environments that blur the line between reality and the surreal. Every image begins as a physical construction, hand-built using plywood, paint, and light, and designed entirely with the final photograph in mind.
After nearly a decade working in wedding and portrait photography, Jada + David shifted their focus in 2020 toward conceptual studio practice. What followed was an intense period of experimentation culminating in their 100 Set Project, during which they built and photographed 100 unique environments in a single year. The experience transformed their approach to image-making and laid the foundation for Surreal Spaces, a body of work that explores how constructed environments shape perception, emotion, and narrative.
In this series, photography becomes something constructed from the ground up. Through carefully engineered sets, the duo creates environments that feel both precise and slightly off. Scale shifts, lines bend, and perception never quite settles. What appears seamless at first glance reveals itself, on closer inspection, as something deliberately built.
Subjects are placed within these fabricated worlds and invited to respond to them. Moments of curiosity, unease, play, and control unfold within spaces that feel both staged and strangely real. Rather than relying on digital manipulation, Jada + David insist on building every illusion in real time, in front of the lens.
The resulting photographs are tactile, immediate, and quietly disorienting. They invite viewers to question what they are seeing and how easily perception can be manipulated, revealing that the boundary between reality and fabrication is often far more fragile than it first appears.
Their work has been exhibited internationally, including presentations at Miami Art Week and Berlin Photo Week, and they have been longlisted for the Aesthetica Art Prize.
