Tracing Paper, Print, Text. (a3)

studio space, dec '11.

projections, mixed media background.

stitch, inkjet print.

Today I came across an artist whose work is really similar to that of Joachim Schmid. Dick Jewell is an artist who collects found photographs and pieces them back together.

I’ll post more about his work at a later date, I’m currently spending every waking second working on my dissertation that’s being handed in on Monday. It’s been so useful for contextualising my work and I’ve been (attempting) to apply psychoanalytical theory to the works of Sally Mann, Richard Billingham and Colin Gray which has actually been really interesting! When that is finally out of the way I’ll be back posting regularly again. I still look forward to receiving emails etc if you have any questions though, so feel free to get in touch! xo

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Photograph: Source Material

Inkjet Print, Stitch.

Vilene, Inkjet Print, Stitch

Acetate, Ink.

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One of my main concerns however is how digital imaging and new technology is changing the way we take and store personal photographs. Once these images were stored away or put on display in the house only to be shared with loved ones. Now these photographs are shared online, for sometimes complete strangers to view. The pressure of sharing these images with a whole network of ‘friends’ subconsciously changes the way we take photographs and the delete button becomes used more and more. We only choose to share the photographs that portray us in the best light and the aberrations and quirkiness we find in old albums are lost.

In my more recent experiments I have been interested in how facebook and this ‘mirror image’ of ourselves has brought us to a new level of repressing things virtually. The ‘mirror’ theory was coined by Lacan who believes that like a way of being looked at by society it is a way of constructing and identifying the self. Facebook allows us to tweek and show ourselves in the best possible light. While family albums are edited to provide the mother with her own satisfying evidence of her good mothering (choosing only to highlight photographs of the happy times and smiles). Facebook albums are there to share with the world evidence of our own happy experiences and allow us to literally ‘untag’ or remove photographs that stray from this perception. By doing this we are living our on screen lives in a distorted reality. If we’re increasingly viewing the world through a warped lens, might it be distorting us in turn?

So why do we feel the need to take photographs? Some critics argue that photographs provide us with an “order of proof “. They are there purely to remind us what has happened and to prove our own existence. Photographs have usually little do with remembering the past though, it’s about looking ahead to a more distant future where we will no longer exist. Photographs allow us to escape mortality and leave a trace of ourselves behind when we are gone.

Further reading: “Screens, Dreams and our Social Media Reality” – www.kaneconsulting.biz

blender pen transfer attempt.

layering acetate.

layering acetate 2.

Rosy Martin on family albums: “It seems that in most families mothers are the archivists and guardians of family history, selecting what shall be remembered, what forgotten; constructing a mythology which validates their own ‘good mothering’.”
- From “Family Snaps, the Meaning of Domestic Photography’ by Jo Spence and Patricia Holland.

Untitled. Acetate Inkjet Print, Vintage Photograph

Untitled II. Acetate Inket Print, Vintage Photograph

'III'. Acetate Inket Print, Quilted Fabric.

'IV', acetate inkjet print, wallpaper.

'Anthony', acetate inkjet print, book page.

Studio space: projection series.

Just ordered a ‘blender pen’ off the internet because I have no idea what one is in the U.K or if we even sell them? If anyone knows what the English version would be please let me know, haha! When it arrives I’m going to be trying to do some blender pen transfers. I found some gorgeous examples of the technique yesterday so I’ll post them up soon.
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'Ivy Day In The Committee Room'

'Summer Fete, 62'

'Boy I'

II

'III'

'Dubliners'

'Girl', Self Portrait.

'Peewee'

process.

I really like the images and it’s been a really creative afternoon that’s gave me a lot of fresh ideas to work with. The only difficult part has been trying to photograph acetate and not capture any reflections in the process. The I used a variety of backgrounds such as letters from my dad’s archive, book pages from a damaged copy of ‘Dubliners’ by James Joyce as well as some quilted fabric and vintage wallpaper. Also I apologise that you’ve probably seen atleast ten different variations of these photographs, I’m just trying to be resourceful with these acetate prints until I get more made.

Let me know what you think. I’ll be updating again later with a different series of images that I did today also.

This post was kindly sponsored by Hallmark Cards. Visit their site for Christmas and Valentines Cards.

Collecting the award from Sunny Hundal

Incase you didn’t know, last Wednesday I came runner up at the Guardian Student Media Awards for Digital Journalist of the Year category. The awards ceremony was amazing and I’ve never really been to anything like it before. There was a champagne reception, canapees and cold pumpkin soup served in test tubes (awful, but I’m told it’s standard at ‘media events’).

The night finished with drinks at the Big Chilli House in Islington. The best part of the night was getting the opportunity to speak to the judge of my category, Sunny Hundal. He gave me loads of great feedback and really encouraged me to keep on with what I’m doing.

me & my big bro.

Anyway, I’d just like to thank you all for your kind comments and ongoing encouragement. I’ll update again about how I get on with my week placement at the Guardian over summer!

You can read the full write up of the event on the Guardian website here – http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/nov/24/york-guardian-student-awards 

Until seeing this documentary I never truly appreciated Sally Mann’s work or really understood the motivation behind her subject matter but this film gave me a real insight to her photographs and her subjects which is usually images of her husband or children. It starts by telling the story of how she was catapulted into fame with her series ‘Immediate Family’, 1992 which featured controversial images of her naked children who she photographed in an unusual and confrontational way.

Sally Mann, Immediate Family '92.

However, the work that stood out most to me was her most recent body of work ‘The Flesh and the Spirit’ which featured stunning portraits of her children almost 18 years after the ‘Immediate Family’ series.

Technique:

“Mann 
has

 experimented
 with 
color 
photography, 
she 
has 
remained 
most
 interested 
in black 
and 
white,
 especially 
photography’s antique 
technology.
 She 
has 
long 
used 
an
 8×10 bellows 
camera, 
and
 has 
explored 
platinum
 and 
bromoil 
printing 
processes.
 In 
the 
mid 1990s she 
began 
using 
the 
wet
 plate 
collodion 
process 
to 
produce
 pictures 
that 
almost
 seem
 like hybrids
 of 
photography, 
painting, 
and
 sculpture.”

www.sallymann.com

transfer.

I’ve found this week so difficult for making work and the pressure of trying to come up with ideas has put me off doing anything and I’ve been avoiding working all week. I eased myself back into it by watching ‘What Remains: The Life & Works of Sally Mann“ video on Youtube.  I would seriously recommend it to anyone, it’s an amazing documentary. However, what inspired me most about this documentary was when Sally describes how she feels after finishing a project, she says that she feels like she’ll never be able to take another photograph again. The advice she gives is to just photograph something, anything so today this is what I did. I found some images and transferred them onto another surface, it’s one of my favourite techniques and even though i’ve featured hundreds of them on here before doing something so simple has eased me back into working and getting over that initial fear has allowed me to begin working and feeling inspired again. Anyway, here are a few images of tonight’s pieces.

transfer process.

transfer 2.

2.

transfer 2.

3.

I’ve been keeping a journal of my work which I’ll post some images of at a later date. But I’ve been documenting some of the ‘themes’ of my work which include – absence, memory, trace, family and simulation.

Jean Baudrillard explains the notion that the idea of simulation “threatens the difference between the ‘true’ and the ‘false’, the ‘real’ and the ‘imaginary’.

SIMULATION: “is the imitation of some real thing available. The act of simulating something generally entails representing certain key characteristics or behaviours of a selected physical or abstract system”

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3.

“The backdrops of my collages are formed by abstract washes layered with fading images of people from my past and present, crumbling surfaces collapse softly into nothingness, illuminated by flashes of explosive colour. Reminiscent of stained antique maps, faded and torn with use, yet quickened by the vibrancy of flickering city lights or a blazing summer sunset, my works seeks to capture an ethereal and dreamlike atmosphere.”

9.

2.

Most common materials used are inks, watercolours, pencil, threads, hand-dyed yarns and fabric, paper, bleach, paint, sewing machine and embellisher machine.

Fabrics which have been hand-dyed, bleached, layered and fused together. Manipulation techniques such as fraying, ripping and wire brushing to distress the fibres. Surfaces are built through layers of hand-stitch in a variety of scale and machine tension affects.

1.

4.

http://www.fidelmasheridan.com/