This Week

This week I took a series of images for my FMP, experimenting with shutter speed and flash.

My Personal Blog

Recently I have begun work on a personal blog, the blog is not related to college work however Im sure at some point the images featured on the blog will influence some of my work, the blog features a collection of old black and white photos of various things. I started this blog because i found these types of images interesting and wanted to create a sort of online library for them.

 whileishovelsnow.tumblr.com

Abstract Art

Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world.Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an attempt to reproduce an illusion of visible reality. The arts of cultures other than the European had become accessible and showed alternative ways of describing visual experience to the artist. By the end of the 19th century many artists felt a need to create a new kind of art which would encompass the fundamental changes taking place in technology, science and philosophy. The sources from which individual artists drew their theoretical arguments were diverse, and reflected the social and intellectual preoccupations in all areas of Western culture at that time.
                                                                                              – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_art 

The Colin Gray Experience

Colin Gray is another photographer I find particularly interesting, recently his exhibition came to my city, which I was fortunate enough to see, the exhibition were photographs that Gray had taken of his parents almost documenting them, the story began with an image of Gray’s parents bed sheet and progressed as the couple got older were Colin’s mother dies and continues onwards documenting how his dad is coping.

As I viewed the exhibition I saw people who clearly became emotionally overwhelmed by the images especially life after his mothers passing. I felt that the images must have been strong to provoke such emotion to people that didn’t even know his family or the people involved in the photographs, this was something I had never witnessed before. 

 

Andy Warhol and Gerhard Richter

Both these artists work with portraiture, but each have their own style, in this post I will look at each of the three.

Andy Warhol is a popart artist known for his work with Campbell Soup, in which he used the same image recurred it, just copying and pasting across the whole canvas, almost as if it was a shop shelf, the piece was to show the power of consumerism by just using the same thing over and over again, he is also known for this portrait of Marilyn Monroe in which he did a similar thing however altered the colour on each image.

Gerhard Richter 

Gerhard Richter uses alot of black and white, throughout his whole collection, he captures the human form in a distorted way using paints to create a blur across the figures in particularly the faces as if they are fading away, forgotten, In the image to the right its almost as if the woman is being pulled away from her child and wrapped herself around him to so they can stay together. 

It also looks as if the woman is protecting her child from something the look on the woman’s face appears to be of disgust to whoever is looking at her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Olly Moss

Olly Moss is a graphic designer aged 24, Moss has quite recently become very popular with his simplistic poster designs created for large successful companies such as Nike, Lucasfilm, Apple, Paramount, Levis and more. 

Moss’ early success is product of his unique designs which has seemingly provoked attention to simplistic and minimalistic style of work and is now used often in promotion for a vast range of products. 

Here is an image Moss created for the film Source Code, this is one of my personal favourites by Moss. The image shows Jake Gyllenhaal (the protagonist in the film) walking through a blank landscape, illustrating the isolation he has within the film. At his feet is a clock made of traintracks(the film is set on the train) and the number 8 is the only number visible which is how long he has to complete his reoccuring mission. I also love how his shadow casts the hands of the clock, something really clever.

Landscapes and how they provoke feeling.

Today in CATS we discussed how landscapes provoke feelings for different people.

I thought about the grey bleakness of cities and how claustrophobic they can be. However because of how I have been raised within a city I have grown used to the advantages of living in such a place, easy access to the shops and technology, easily being able to move around and see people, so in that sense it also acts as a prison keeping you within it as moving to the country side I would loose all these things and maybe not able to cope.

 

Giuliano Camarda – Ethnic Forced Displacement

Giuliano Camarda is a photographer that I discovered through behance.net, a site I made reference to in one of my earlier posts.

http://www.behance.net/gallery/Ethinc-Forced-Displacement-Jahalin-Bedouins/3564993

The above link will direct you to a series of images he has taken, the images capture life in a large settlement between Jerusalem and Jericho called the Rab al-Jahalin.

The reason I decided to include this in my blog is because I feel that as a graphic artist I also rely on other media’s in particularly photography. I felt that these images were very strong and thought provoking showing the people of the settlement struggling, children in beds wired to drips etc. I particularly felt that the images with the men with guns was extremely striking capturing the two people sat isolated infront of them to the distance almost scared to approach the men, I think that all the images are wonderful and unique to one an other.

 

Damien Hirst.

 Damien Hirst is a currently popular and renown artist known for his work with dead animals, Hirst preserves various animals such as sheep and shark in a gel designed to keep the bodies from composing. He has these carcasses preserved in numerous ways having the body of a cow split in two letting the person walk between the two sides.

Hirst has come under alot of scrutiny in recent years because he admits to paying artists to do the work for him, he provides the idea of what he wants and maybe begins it however pays other people to finish the job for him.

A particularly known piece by Hirst is his diamond skull titled ‘For the love of god’ this skull was made from 

#15,000,000 worth of diamonds, around 8,601 used weighing in at a total of 1,106.18 carats. The model was based of an 18th century skull and the teeth were the only original part of the human,  The asking price for For the Love of God was £50,000,000 ($100 million or 75 million euros). It didn’t sell outright, and on 30 August 2008 was sold to a consortium that included Hirst himself and his gallery White Cube.

More Basquiat.

Here is another piece by Basquiat titled, ‘1960’ this is again a seemingly basic image which on first glance appears to be nothing, the image is infact a self portrait of Basquiat with his birthday above him. Basquiat was African- American, he has used a darker colour to illustrate himself, this could be a reference to his skin tone as in other imagery he has created figures using exagerated colour however I feel that the use of colour here could represent him at a much darker time in his life, maybe he was feeling empty and hollow, or going through a darker period of his life the year of his birth a reminiscent of an easier time of his life as a child. This is further backed up by Basquiat isolated within the composition, centred and alone with no colour surrounding him.