Artist Blog -- Eleanor Hardwick -- 2.15

from "A Secret Place"

from "A Secret Place"

from "A Secret Place"

from "A Secret Place"

from "Diary 08/09"

from "Diary 08/09"

From her website:

Eleanor's work embodies the idea of daydreaming the banality and routine of daily life into something more mystical, playful and beautiful; it is a reflection of a world where surrealism meets realism. Her photographs covey a juxtaposition between being lost in the world's perplexity, whilst finding beauty in all things, where a soft and whimsical romanticism meets wistfulness and yearning.

Sometimes you just can't say things better than they've already been said, and Eleanor Hardwick's artist statement is spot on in describing her work (as a successful artist statement should be). Eleanor's imagery is beautiful, quiet and stunning in its simplicity.  Although she sometimes employs more elaborate sets that had to be constructed for the image, they still seem effortless or "found" as it were. The images I've posted from her Diary 08/09 series are the type of pictures that I admire and struggle with creating: captures of the everyday that seem perfect and still and infinite -- somehow beautiful in their ordinariness. 

At only 17 years old, I am beyond impressed with her work and I can't even begin to imagine how her works will progress as she gets older and more experienced. I see only good things to come from Eleanor Hardwick.

Eleanor's website

Artist Lecture -- Paul Pfeiffer

"Four Horseman of the Apocalypse (6)"2001
Digital duraflex print, 60 x 48 inches
Edition of 6, AP of 1 

"The Long Count (Rumble in the Jungle)"2001
Digital video loop, LCD monitor, DVD player, and metal armature, 6 x 7 x 60 inches
Edition of 6, AP of 1 

"Poltergeist"2000
Laser-fused polyamide powder, and wood, glass, and linen vitrine
Object: 4 x 4 x 8 inches
Vitrine: 22 x 22 x 24 inches
Edition of 3, AP of 2

"Quod Nomen Mihi Est?"1998
Wall-recessed diorama, 10 x 16 x 18 inches

"LIVE FROM NEVERLAND"

 2006

Stills from two-channel video installation

"Live Evil (Bucharest)"

2004

Two digital video loops, two metal armatures, two projectors, still video installation

Edition of 6, AP of 2

Paul Pfeiffer is a Hawaiian born artist who spent most of his childhood in the Philippines.  His work is mostly composed of video installations, which I suppose is the sculptural aspect of most of his pieces, since very few of them could actually be considered as sculpture (at least from the work that was shown).  The works shown had an eeriness about them that left me uncomfortable, even in the iconic Risky Business (which, for the record I have not seen but it's so recognizable!) loop I knew I was seeing Tom Cruise having a tantrum on the couch but it looked more like he was writhing or being electrocuted and so where the image came from didn't really factor into how I perceived the video, or maybe it did I'm not really sure. I experienced the same thing with Live Evil where I recognized the disfigured visage of Michael Jackson performing despite not really being familiar with that particular (or any) performances of Jackson's.  Still, though, I was very discomforted and put at dis-ease by the warping effect that was created by the merging torso.  This relates directly to his sentiment that it doesn't matter where the images really come from, but it creates another layer to the piece if you do.  

While looking for images to put in this post, I found what I realized was the piece that he chose not to show due to length and that piece was LIVE FROM NEVERLAND which, after reading about it, I was really disappointed he decided not to show. According to descriptions, one channel was a Filipino children's choir singing Jackson's 1993 broadcast regarding the child molestation allegations that had come against him while in the other channel, said broadcast was played sans sound.  The part that seemed remarkable to me was that the cadence of the choir is said to have been matched perfectly to Jackson's silent delivery of the same words.

Idea Post -- Stream of Consciousness -- 2.10

SUGGESTIONS FROM WIKIPEDIA:

1. Ostensibly unedited, spontaneous live or recorded performances, as in film, music, and dramatic and comic monologues, intended to recreate the raw experience of the person portrayed or the performer

2. a narrative mode used as a literary, cinematic, theatrical, or lyrical technique

3. (psychological) the flow of thoughts in the conscious mind

Stream of consciousness as a narrative device is generally characterized as a form of interior monologue that hasn't been sent through an editing process that would typically clarify the thoughts of a person to the audience experiencing said monologue, it is as if the monologue is being observed in the brain. The term was introduced by American philosopher and psychologist William James and he described it as a sort of mind-world connection. This resulted in a major influence for avant-gard AND modernist literature and art.

Several well known literary figures have used this type of writing in their works including William Faulkner, Jack Kerouac, T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Marcel Proust, Virginia Wolfe, Samuel Beckett, Hermann Hesse, J.D. Salinger, Albert Camus, Bret Easton Ellis, Mark Z. Danielewski, and Thomas Pynchon. Of these writers, the best example of what I'm trying to explain here is going to be T.S. Eliot's the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, which can be read in its entirety here. Below is an excerpt:

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!	75
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?	80
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,	85
And in short, I was afraid.

From the poem, the reader is unsure of exactly what Eliot is writing about but is still able to feel the tone of his writing which is in direct correlation with my work.  The story itself is unimportant, but the feelings that can be extracted from the writing, the dots that can be connected, those are places where the real meaning lies.

Artist Blog -- Manjari Sharma's "The Shower Series" -- 2.8

 

 

Manjari Sharma is an India born Photographer who has moved back and forth between the US and India a couple times during her photographic career. She has worked with high profile photographers, one such being Eric Ogden, and is currently based in New York.  In the Shower Series, Sharma invited people into her bathroom in order to photograph them and while doing so she invited them to actually shower in front of her. From her website:

I noticed that once the warm water ran over my subjects' bodies it 

often relieved them of some of the awkwardness the camera brought 

about.  Once they were relaxed, the bathroom, formerly a beauty 

parlour, now turned into a confessional and I the hair dresser. 

Many of my subjects have shared intimate details of their life with me 

and every new person in the shower brings a brand new allegory. 

With every new visit I've had a new protagonist; A new plot and a 

new parable of hurt and heroism that has come undone under my 

shower.  Secretly  I have been told by my subjects that it is thrilling 

and adventuresome to be in my shower; secretly cheating all of my 

traditional and tame Indian upbringing I live through all of my 

subjects. Fighting their wars and braving their fears and for those 

few hours, we are connected through this controversial pious space.

The release of tension and awkwardness that is described in this excerpt is evident in the expressions presented by the models.  Each moment captured has a story that can be inferred from the gentle facial expressions and each image is engaging, despite being presented in conjunction with other, similarly lit and composed portraits which is a great feat.  Sharma has an eye for vulnerability but does not exploit her subjects. Instead, the relationship that she has formed with each person is shared with the viewer who then forges their own relationship with each person photographed.

Manjari's Website

Idea Post -- Home/Gothic Fiction -- 2.4

DEFINITION

 home [hohm] - noun: 

1. a house, apartment, or shelter that is the usual residence of a person, family, or household
2. the place in which one's domestic affections are centered
3. any place of residence or refuge: a heavenly home

Home is a concept that has always seemed foreign to me.  I've never quite related to the idea of a space, a sanctuary type of place where no harm can come to me. Perhaps this is because at any place that I've ever called home, I've experienced some sort of betrayal, in a sense. Rather than the typical depiction of a home as related in the image above, I feel as though my understanding of a home more closely identifies with the idea of a home as found in gothic literature.


The home in gothic literature is architecture, a dwelling, and it is as corrupt and crumbling as the characters that find residence inside of its walls.  Horace Walpole is said to be the author to birth the movement with the novel the Castle of Otranto -- rife with melodrama, parody, and decay. None of the inhabitants are sound of mind and the evil that snakes through the stories is not a physical ugly creature -- no Frankenstein, no Dracula -- but rather a psychological malice or disease that consumes the player that it is found in. The house itself is typically in some sort of disrepair or in the process of decaying which represents the irreparable state(s) of its inhabitants.


While I can't say that my experience has been to such an extreme, it felt as though my life were in such a state of shamble. My childhood home was always in various stages of being "fixed up" which lead to splintered floors, stray nails, and other precarious circumstances that needed to be navigated around.  Family matters were no better and persisted even after the divorce of my mother and step-dad. My own mind was ravaged by the aftermath of various encounters with my step-father and that weight was a lot to deal with and still carries with me now. 


I hadn't quite made a connection between this and my work before, I knew the events which have really fueled my work, but the home aspect hadn't really made itself apparent to me and now I'm interested to see how this realization will impact my creations for this semester.

Artist Blog -- Ian Aleksander Adams' "Gray Days"

The above photos are a selection from Ian Aleksander Adams' photobook entitled Gray Days.

While checking my blogs this evening I read a blurb about Ian Aleksander Adams. It referenced his work Gray Days and a brief essay that his mother wrote on the work. Intrigued, I investigated a little further and fell in love with this series.  It is a perfect example of what I want to accomplish with my work, that is, a series of images of seemingly unrelated instances intertwined to create a story.  The imagery itself is still, even in moments that show some kind of action, they are quiet and reflective and reminiscent of those moments when I find myself just focusing on one small, insignificant detail of my day.  Even more interesting, was his mother's commentary on the imagery.  Truthfully, I did not finish reading what she was writing as it hit very close to home.  She wrote:

Looking at the somber, muted, personal and a bit alienated images, I can relate to the mood and existential angst. What is the meaning of this proscribed life? I also feel a bit guilty. Perhaps my son would be out shooting a more engaging world, if his younger life had been different, or his genes. Maybe his images would convey the vibrant beauty and energy of the world around him if I, his mother, had been more able to connect him to it, to live with verve and joy rather than fighting fatigue and the sense of clawing negativity on many days, for many years. Maybe his work would have more clarity, color, drama, and be striking. Some of his early stuff was. Why is he pulling away from that? What is the message he is reaching to make- is it partly to me?

It reminded me of something that transpired between my mother and me when I showed her my portfolio last semester.  She was silent, at first, and when asked what it made her feel she said it made her feel like a failure as a mother.  She's nothing of the sort, but that is, I suppose, what the aim of my work is in a way. It is somber and brooding, not what one would expect from me on the outset I'm sure.  I feel almost as though it is my purpose to create such work, I just feel as though it doesn't fit in the environment that I exist in at the moment.

Ian's Website

Artist Lecture -- Alec Soth

 

 

 

images copyright Alec Soth

The lecture that Alec Soth gave this evening was strangely indicative of the work that he presented -- charming, at times humorous, and a bit sad.  At the beginning of his talk I began to feel empowered as a photographer only to find myself questioning the point of photographing anything. What is the point of photographing what has surely been photographed before? It is this question, however that should be leading me to produce something of interest, something of value, something that may have been seen before but has a new light shed upon it.  When he described the nature of photographic narrative, it resonated within me as it shone a light on how I like to work that I had never considered, or rather, I had considered it, but it wasn't something that I really gave much thought to. The photographic narrative is a series that must be connected and is similar to a series of scattered dots.  My work has consistently been like this, but with intent rather than happenstance. I also appreciated that he had other things going on in his imagery that the audience didn't necessarily have to know about (i.e. the connection between the sheep and the sleep study patients) but that didn't take away from the quality/accessibility of the work in most cases. Out of everything though, there was one thing that he said that really made the most sense. When asked how we maintain the integrity of the art of photography in a "democratic jungle" he stated that a great picture can be so easy, but it is a great series that is the true challenge.