Monday 5 May 2014

Project Research (Key Post: Research)

Through shooting geometric structures and double exposures my work had a clear link to the artistic movement of cubism so I've decided to study the movement. Cubism was probably the most prominent artistic movement of the 20th century, originating in Paris just after the turn of the century it became the movement of the avant-guard lead by Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Juan Gris and more. 

Cubism involves taking a subject and depicting it from a variety of viewpoints and combining them to create a new geometric version of the subject. My photographs involve photographing a piece of subject matter the overlaying another exposure in an attempt to distort it and create new patterns sort of like cubism. The cubist artists who's work links closest to mine would be Georges Braque. His paintings 'Man With a guitar' and 'Mandora' are similar to my work in that they contain sharp shapes layered together contrasting with one-another. His paintings create a new structure out of an already existing one, distorting and combining viewpoints. In my work I'm trying to take existing structures and combining them to create new patterns in an attempt to show that 'everyday' structures can take on new interesting forms. 

My research throughout Unit X had gradually changed just like my work has. At the beginning of the project I researched into the work of William Eggleston, he is one of the most notable photographers to shoot banal, everyday situations and make them look appealing so his work was a good place for me to start. In the period after that my work focused much more on shape and form so the work of painter Mark Rothko has a small but important influence on my work. Still focusing on form and pattern within everyday objects and architecture I studied the work of Albert Renger-Patzsch who is noted for finding patterns and interesting lines in everyday objects, he primarily photographs in black and white and his photographs were a big influence in my work from that point on as he presents the most normal objects in a way that makes you take an interest in their structure which is something I definitely wanted to achieve. The next photographer I researched into was Deidi von Schaewen, I found her book 'Walls' in the library and took an instant liking to it, I researched her mainly because so focuses on texture and one thing my photographs needed to have was a variety of textures so different shapes and objects could contrast against each other. As my photographs focused more on geometric architecture and objects I wanted to research an artist who was known for creating geometric structures, I ended up studying the work of artist Sol Lewitt, he is a fine artist who created a minimal structure of out 122 individual cube variations, I mainly studied his work as I wanted to find out interesting things that could be done with geometric structures, he combines many small sculptures to make up one overall piece, this was one of the early things that influenced me to use the double exposure technique and combine exposures to make one overall photograph. Although he isn't a photographer his work was still quite a big influence on me. After I decided I was going to shoot double exposures I wanted to study the work of a photographer is very concomitant in using the technique. I found the work of a Japanese photographer who goes by the name of 'Hodachrome', he uses the double exposure technique but takes it a step further in that he cross processes film and shoots on a roll of film then reverse it and shoots on it again giving this work an orange cast. His work showed the aesthetic of double exposure work and was a great example of that it looks like to combine architecture through double exposure. I have taken interesting elements from all these artists work and combined them with my own style to make a body of work that has gradually progressed and changed into something that will to the brief justice and show my capabilities.         

Georges Braque - Man with a Guitar