Tanja Deman

Tanja’s art is heavily influenced by her strong interest in how space, physical and emotional connection to a place and her relationship to nature are perceived.  Her works take various forms – photography, collage, video and public art, conveying strong images, memories, or feelings to mind of her relationship with her and her environment on urban and rural space.

By exploring the effects of recently built legacy or natural sites, she investigates the development , structure and functions of space and captures dynamics concerning the mechanics hidden behind the face of both the built and natural environment.

When meeting her, she said of how she had used the archive to help her explore her work and develop ideas relating to the themes that she portrays in her own work.  Also aside from helping her from a technical point of view, the archive helped in a more practical way in the sense that as she is from Croatia and she is somewhat ignorant of the island and so the archive has helped by allowing her to have a certain eye for the islands best resources when shooting, basing her work on past works.  For example, by analyzing cliff faces or water shots, she can grasp an understanding of how the environment responds to external influences such as lighting.  As many cliffs are relatively similar in structure, she can explore the ways to strengthen her contrast levels through shadow, and explore angles, presenting textures that depict the island in a way that represents her relationship with it.

This photograph fascinates me in many ways.  Firstly I like how range of tones of black progressing to white are captured so strongly here.  This is because the contrast levels are very high, which allows us to delve deeper into the various compositions of areas of the photograph.  I particularly like how the waters surface appears almost like a roof to the photograph that gives a sense of strength and stability to the water.  This enhances the deep, dark and bold shades of black that encompass the photograph which allows us to focus on the lighter tones.  Interestingly the whiter areas appears more refined beautiful and elegant.  However the fact it is shot as if it has just pierced or intruded on the dark calm ocean but in such an elegant way, this contrast makes us feel somewhat interested in how the formation of the environment, being captured in 2 juxtaposing ways can change so suddenly.  It almost appears there is a living spirit or presence captures, and that further re-enforces my view of how living things change suddenly – pictured through the juxtaposition.  This clearly shows the relationship between Tanja and her environment as she is clearly aware of space, using this to create a sense of eeriness, however we can see with how with how the composition is used to crate a scene of awe and serenity, it describes the relationship between Tanja and the environment in the sense that despite the world we live in, there is beauty to be found.

Liurri Ghirri

Luigi Ghirri, 5 January 1943 – 14 February 1992 was an Italian artist and photographer who gained a strong reputation as a pioneer of contemporary photography, with a close reference to its relationship between fiction and reality.

Starting his career in the 1970s he was influenced by conceptual art, creating Atlante (1973) and Kodachrome (1978).  Here his images of the landscape were presented with a “deadpan, often ironic wit and a continuous anthropological engagement with his surroundings.” The various compositions and hues of colour in his photographs suggested are particularly interesting to me because they the colours appear quite retro like and warm.  This suggests that these environments he is shooting display apparent emotional tones suggesting he has a somewhat personal relationship, which his use of hues and colours to present what his relationship is like.   This is similar to Tanja’s work in the sense they both explore not just the style of relationship with their environment but what it essentially means to them.  Therefore this is where both artists differ in the sense Tanja appears to seek and explore the relationships, Tanja shows how she reacts to the environment from her personnel relationship whereas Luiggi seems to be more about creating the environment which he feels strongly about.

Superstudio  

Superstudio was an architecture firm, founded in 1966 in Florence, Italy by Adolfo Natalini and Cristiano Toraldo di Francia. Superstudio was a major part of the radical architecture movement of the late 1960s. The founders had gone to school at the University of Florence,and first showed their work in the Superarchitettura  show in 1966.

Their work has been particularly influential, through the strong use of symmetrical lines and geometry.  This has influenced Tanja as she focused on the relationship between man and place whereas here, they became known for creating quite abstract designs that showed a new style of architecture, through forms such as photo montage, which too influenced Tanja.  In a sense by the fact that they created almost a new world, suggesting to us where perhaps where humanity is going, this could influence Tanja’s work as she presents her relationship with her environment which could be ever changing.

Grosnez is a ruined 14th century castle in St Ouen in the northwest corner of Jersey.  Today, the ruins are open to the public.  The name comes from the old Norse words for “grey headland”.  he castle’s purpose was to provide local farmers with a place of refugee from French attacks upon being built in 1313.  Today:

L’Etacq is an area below Grosnez, early in its years it has been affected by numerous crimes, for example the unsolved “St Ouens murder case”.  Also, an old part of Jersey folkore says of an old manor house in a Forrest, one day being engulfed by the sea, and you can still see those old tree stumps today when the tide is low from 650 years ago.  There were major quarry developments there that occurred in 1853 when building the local road.

A few of my own images that I took from Tanja’s task she set us of presenting eye soars.  I plan to use this as a basis for my new work.

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