Rafael Varona’s project “Impossible Bottles” is the shape of a Wes Anderson feeling stuffed inside a self-contained ship in a bottle. There’s magic inside every rhythmic rotation, every sway, every bubble. As an animator myself, I’m easily entertained by things that move. There’s a life and an excitement in movement. But there’s a subtlety to the motion Rafael creates here that captivates me beyond the blinking lights and acid trip cartoons that usually hold my attention. That subtlety lends itself far beyond the confines of these tiny bottles that house impossible ecosystems. Pushing further back in space than borders will allow before pulling us back into the bottle with it. We don’t know how these figures ended up in the bottles. But then again, we don’t know how we got there either.
Rafael Varona is a talented designer, illustrator and animator from Berlin Germany with many more places to take us. Keep an eye out for more of his work in the future and go check out his already impressive portfolio here:
