Diane Arbus

Diane Arbus was a photographer who primarily documented people. She was known for her black and white square photographs. She was also known for her photos of the 'freaks' in society, those who are marginalized by the community around them or those people who she felt has a 'surreal' kind of reality to them. She aimed to document people as they were, not as flattering reproductions. I think the honesty in her photography is what struck me. Yet there is a mystery to them as well. They lead you to want to know more about what is happening, find out the story behind the person. She obviously has a knack for finding intriguing characters in society.

When looking through her works it is obvious to me that she also had a fascination with relationships. Much of her work consists of pairs or groups of people. They also seem to focus on the similarities they have with each other. This leads to her fascination with twins and triplets also.

Her images which depict marginalized characters seem to aim to find the personality behind the attribute that makes them 'marginalized. The images of others however seem to satirize the society which creates marginalized groups. A lot of her images note the conformity of upper class society suggesting to me that Arbus valued the different and unique very much.

Through my work I aim to find the unique traits of the people around me while also documenting relationships and notions of 'the group'.






References

Arbus, Diane. "The Photography of Diane Arbus" Accessed June 2, 2011. http://diane-arbus-photography.com/

Bosworth, Patricia. 2005. Diane Arbus: A Biography. New York: W.W. Norton.

Lee, Anthony W and John Pultz. 2003. Diane Arbus: Family Albums. Kansas: Yale University Press, in association with the Mount Holyoke College Museum of Art and the Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas.

Experimenting With Text.

Tracey Emin

Tracey Emin is a young British artist who has shocked the art world time and time again. Personally I think her work is simply brutally honest and many cannot deal with that. And why not? Humans don't tend to be the most truthful, forward or honest beings in my experience, it's a bit of a shock to the system.

I particularly like some of the works which she created in her performance piece "Exorcism of the Last Painting I Ever Made" (1996) Emin locked herself in a room for a number of days and just painted, got all creative urges and emotions out of her system. The installation left behind included 14 paintings, 78 drawings, 5 body prints, various painted and personal items, furniture, CDs, newspapers, magazines, kitchen and food supplies. These works have nothing to do with technique, they're all about raw emotion and human longing.

I really like the fact that she has just allowed herself to flow into the artwork. She has physicalized her feelings. Through my text works (and all of my art I suppose) I hope to do exactly that; make my feelings, relationships and experiences a solid thing, make the intangible tangible. I think I would still have trouble making my private feelings so public with my named attached to it which I actually find kind of interesting. I mean I pride myself on being someone who really has no care in the world about what people think of what I do or who I am. I guess that's not the case.







I also like that she can go on British television drunk and take the piss out of the pretentious art world :) Oh Tracey, you're quite the character.



References

Emin, Tracey. 2009. One Thousand Drawings. New York: Rizzoli.

kamalika1234. 2008. "Tracey Emin on the loose" YouTube video, posted June 30. Accessed June 2, 2011. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKNr2LOkXYE&feature=channel_video_title

The Saatchi Gallery- London Contemporary Art Gallery. 2011. "Tracey Emin Exorcism of the Last Painting I Ever Made- Contemporary" Accessed June 2, 2011. http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/artpages/tracey_emin_exorcism1.htm.

Richard Burbridge

Why on earth did I never think of stitching into my photos? You know those times when you think to yourself 'WHY ON EARTH DID I NOT THINK OF THAT FIRST!?', seeing Richard Burbridge's and Maurizio Anzeri's amazing collaboration from the June 11 issue of Dazed and Confused was definitely one of those moments.

The dramatic and strange positions of Burbridge's black and white images mixed with the colourful stitching of Anzeri which works with the contours of the face make these highly effective pieces. It is simple to see that these photographs were amazing before the stitching. The stitching simply adds to the photograph however, in my opinion, does not take away from the emotion of them. It's strange to me that the stitching can have such an edgy feel for such a traditional medium. Even past that the styling by Robbie Spencer is fantastic. He's used lots of knits and textures I suppose to fit in with the textural elements of the stitching. This contributes hugely to the overall feeling of the photographs.

This has inspired me to explore collaboration in the future and experiment with other techniques in combination with my photography.

By mixing new and old, monochrome and colour, sharp and soft and of course their own separate talents these artists have created a set of truly beautiful images.





References

Anzeri, Maurizio, Richard Burbridge and Robbie Spencer. 2010. "It Came From the Sky." Dazed and Confused, June 11.

McEntyre, Tamatoa . 2011. "Bitchez Get Stichez" Show Us Your Stache, May 22. Accessed June 2. http://www.showusyourstache.net/2011/05/bitchez-get-sitchez.html

Marc Johns

Similar to David Shrigley Marc Johns creates simplistic and quirky drawings. The comedic side of his images makes them instantly likable to almost anyone. He uses ink and water colour to create images which consist of easily recognizable symbols and shapes. He uses the images to decorate and the text to state the obvious within the image. The completely random topics which he uses are intriguing and suggest complete and utter useless fun. I think that's what attracts me to them. The mixture of meticulous neat drawing and complete nonsense makes this images simply fun.




References

Johns, Marc. 2009. Serious Drawings. New York: Te Neues Publishing Company.

Johns, Marc. "Marc Johns" Accessed June 1, 2011. http://www.marcjohns.com/

David Shrigley

Just recently my studio tutor suggested that I work a little in text and typography... so I did. I found I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected. I was able to really personalize the things I was saying, in this case of course relating to friendship.

In doing so I came across the work of David Shrigley. His works are not necessarily refined or elegant but rather quirky and interesting. I've found myself struggling to keep away from refining all my work so much so I admire this quality. A lot of his work from an outsider's perspective doesn't really make sense which gives them a mysterious quality, it leaves you wondering what he meant, what he got from it personally. I aim to make my works thoroughly personal yet able to be related to by others.

I love David Shrigley's work and I hope to work in the same quirky qualities in some of my work.







References

SaveTheArtsTV. (2010, Sep 9). 'An important message about the arts' - an animated video by artist David Shrigley [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6rYDaORe3k&feature=share

Shrigley, David. 2008. Ants Have Sex in Your Beer. Glasgow: Chronicle Books.

Skins

People keep telling me that my life as depicted through my art looks like a skins episode... I'm not so sure. Are we really that mental? I mean we do like to party and have fun but I'm not so sure we party quite as hard as those on Skins...

And more importantly, what character am I!?!?