Write a Statement of Intent that clearly contextualises; What you want to explore? Why it matters to you? How you wish to develop your project? When and where you intend to begin your study? Make sure you describe your chosen theme (IDENTITY & COMMUNITY), subject-matter (topic, issue), artists (inspirations, references) and final outcome (photobook, film).
Statement Of Intent
The discussion of teenager’s mental health is growing in everyday society, some disregard it and some understand it’s increasing prominence; I wish to create a study on the theme ‘Identity’ surrounding the topic of anxiety. I have personally suffered from generalised anxiety disorder from a young age, it has always been a part of my life and I am still learning to deal and live with it, however it is not something I am ashamed of. I am grateful for the knowledge I have that I am not alone on this journey, many of my friends and family are also affected by it so can understand and help each other through any days or moments in life that are particularly difficult. I really want to use photography as a medium to explore how I have coped with anxiety throughout my life, focusing on the idea of finding safety and comfort in certain places around my home, family member’s homes and areas around the island that have always made me feel less anxious. The whole concept of anxiety has been quite normalised in today’s society, having both positive and negative effects, as some feel less alone while others feel less seen. Highlighting this topic, by studying the positive areas of life where I have felt most safe, is very important to me; what matters to me most is creating a truthful display on a personal topic. My ideas for the development of this project are to capture some still life images around my home, using windows in many compositions with reflections of sunlight being a reminder of hope. An artist that has interested me while researching this type of imagery is Daniel Blaufuks, whose are naturalistic yet orchestrated scenes in his images hold questions around memories and nostalgia. Additionally, I have really connected with the work of Robert Darch and his project ‘Vale’, where he documents rooms in and around his home that he has lived in isolation with throughout his struggles with illness. I would really like to develop my project by taking inspiration from Darch’s photography, possibly capturing moments of countryside walks I would go on when feeling anxious during lockdown or visiting the woodlands I would explore as a child – highlighting the idea of ‘escaping reality’ through made up stories and games to keep my mind away from getting worried or scared. I aim for my final outcome to be a photobook that is able to capture and focus on the positive memories dealing with anxiety, where I’ve felt safe and loved by those around me while also showing moments of fear and realism to contrast.
Have a look at some these questions listed below from the book Photography Decoded authored by curator and writer Susan Bright and curator, writer and photo-historian Hedy van Erp.
How is narrative constructed in the work of Shipla Grupta and Umberto Verdoliva?
Opening quote
Introduction (250-500 words):
I am going to look at the theme of identity within family heritage, childhood, and location, focusing on how photographers create narrative with images. I find this interesting because it adds more depth to an image and creates more meaning. Narrative in photography also creates questions for the viewer and a sense of nostalgia or sentimentality which connects to the viewer, adding more value to a piece. The two photographers I will be looking at are Shilpa Gupta Umberto Verdoliva, I have chosen these two photographers because in their works they both explore storytelling and narrative in their own distinctive ways, looking at unique topics and different photographic processes.
In my current project for Identity, I am looking at location and upbringing by going through my own families archive of images and taking new images from the same locations of the old images around Jersey, focusing on a more photographic approach instead of a casual snapshot. I will take inspiration from both photographers mentioned and create double exposers and split my images in half to create a more interesting set of images.
Pg 1 (500 words): Historical/ theoretical context within art, photography and visual culture relevant to your area of study. Make links to art movements/ isms and some of the methods employed by critics and historian.
Looking at both photographers I am studying, realism and pictorialism seem to have an influence on their photographic styles. Pictorialism is an art movement that started in 1880 and came from photographers who wanted to prove photography as an art form. They were heavily influenced by artist of the time and would manipulate their images to make them look more like art. Pictorialists would use techniques like Vaseline on a camera lens to get a blurrier effect, scratching negatives to create a brush stroke effect and mixing chemicals. Realism is an art movement that started in 1915 as a reaction to pictorialism, certain people did not like the manipulation that would go into the pictorialst photographs and wanted to take pictures as they were, providing records of the world.
Alfred Stiegltiz, The Asphalt Paver, NY, 1892, printed 1913.
Edward Weston, Dunes, Oceano, 1936.
Both have abstract approaches to taking photos and often find themselves focusing on shapes and forms. Umberto Verdoliva’s images in his project What is a dream? have a more pictorialist approach to them because they are artier in nature and have been manipulated to create his final outcomes.
Storytelling is something that has been around for a while, since humans could speak and before through cave drawings, in forms of myths, legends, fables, anecdotes, or ballads. A story is a series of related events or experiences which unfold over time, likely to follow the structure of exposition, conflict, climax, resolution. Narrative is not necessarily a story it is also the way a story is told and interpreted. David Campell, professor, and political scientist says that ‘in telling visual stories about the world, photography is narrating the world’ which suggests that narrative aids photography and is more than photography alone which is often linked to context. A photograph is non-verbal in nature and captures a moment in time removed from a timeline, a singular image can tell a story individually, also images put together in a certain way can tell a story through sequencing.
Interpretations of narratives in photography can change the way a viewer looks at an image, whether this be clear with context behind an image, or something left to the viewer to analyse inside their own mind. Photographers developing a visual story should focus on what story they are going to tell and how they are going to communicate this to the viewer.
Narrative in photography can be shown in various ways such as photo collage where each photo represents different events and the contrast between these images creates a relationship to the viewer. Photobooks are also a way of conveying a narrative through photography even though they would not be thought to have a narrative in the sense of a sequence of events unfolding over time. Photobooks concentrate on an overall theme, concept, or idea. This is done by the way they are presented on a page and throughout the book.
Pg 2 (500 words): Analyse first artist/photographer in relation to your essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.
My first photographer I will be looking at is Shilpa Gupta who is an Indian artist who uses a broad range of mediums to create her images and artworks, often interactive typically using sculpture, installation, text, photography and audio and visual technology. She creates artworks that focus on human relations, subjectivity, and themes such as desire, conflict, security, technology, borders, and censorship.
I will be looking at her project Altered Inheritances- 100 (Last Name) Stories focusing on the key themes of narrative and family. In this project she looks at family heritage through family names where she presents her images split in half and reassembles them to form a misaligned set of images which she exhibits in a room and the different sets are presented next to one another in a long strip.
Gallery view from Shilpa Gupta, Altered Inheritances- 100 (Last Name) Stories, Pigmented inkjet prints in split frames, 2012-2014.
She takes historical photographs, snapshots, and scans of abstract drawings. The text on the images tells the story from hundreds of different people who had to abandon their last names after crossing boarders and migrating somewhere new. The abstract geometric shapes of the split images with the line split in the middle works as both a divider and connector with framing the isolation from identification and belonging.
This story is similar to what was seen in the Jewish Evacuation during World War 2, migrations of Bengalis from East Bengal to India, or from one place to another. Gupta says this act is ‘a crucial step towards sacrificing your tribe, ancestor, family, parent’ by her misaligned images because if we change our story, we complete something better, inspiring, and practical but we also lose ourselves.
In the exhibition where Shilpa Guptas’ Altered Inheritances is exhibited and Zarina the walls of the gallery and work is installed in the Tyler of a house plan. Divided into different parts of the gallery both artists artworks complement each other and conversing with each other as well as the people who view them.
The house in Zarina’s work turns into the form of the presentation itself in the gallery. Shilpa Gupta looks at the divide in people sharing common culture and the deportation of these people within state boundaries like West Bengal and Bangladesh. These two regions are similar but are part of two countries meaning they attract and repel each other. Gupta looks at the political divide and takes this as the crucial matter that splits communities turning them alien to the other half which can be seen further in her work by the physical divide of her images.
Shilpa Gupta, Altered Inheritances- 100 (Last Name) Stories, Pigmented inkjet prints in split frames, 2012-2014
Shilpa Gupta’s work is inspired by the issues with how south Asians are treated in the gulf and how they survived by changing their names, changing their identity. In the above sequence there is seven split images including images of surfaces, landscapes, and a portrait image.
In the middle of the sequence there is an image of a coastal scene where there is people stood next to a beach with rocks and the sea. Under the image there is a quote that reads, ‘In 1970’s, when he boarded the overnight train to the dream city, he left his surname behind. He chose a new one, something sounding ‘more local’, more Maharashtrian, something that could effectively camouflage his Gujrati back ground. He had been told he would be dealing with several who resisted new entrants into Mumbai. Vaishav Rathore Panchal’ typed in a type-writer front.
Image from above sequence
The image is muted in colour and has a warm tone to it. The texture in the waves, people and rocks creates a high tonal range and makes the overall feel of the image gritty. As this is in the middle of the sequence, the rough texture could indicate the middle of a story where there is usually a turning point in the plot. This could relate to this image as there is a lot of grain which implies that there is more character, something is happening.
The contrast between the people and the sea creates a diagonal divide, cutting the people from the sea, this could link to the cutting of their freedom as the people who were forced to change their names to fit in with a new society lost that freedom of expression and perhaps lost themselves. The image is taken from above looking down which gives the image a different perspective and creates a more interesting point of view.
The quote suggests that there is a serious divide in Mumbai between people who are fleeing to safety and people who already live there which is reflected in the image by the divide between the light and dark from the people and the sea.
At the end of the sequence there is an image of the sky, with the quote, ‘When he was getting married, he wanted him and his wife to have the same name, but felt it was unfair to ask her to take his surname. So they both changed their surnames to something new ‘, handwritten under the image.
Image from above sequence
The image is quite monochrome and only has two colours, being white and blue. There is not much tonal range in the image creating a low contrasting image which is soft in colour. The image is taken from eye-level, in level with the horizon capturing the whole sky as the sole image. The natural daylight from the sky adds to the soft, bright atmosphere, this could be a metaphor because the image is at the end of the sequence and could symbolise a happy, peaceful ending.
Gupta has added a white geometric circle into the centre of the very organic image creating a contrast between them. This creates a divide between the calm and soft background and the harsh crisp circle.
The quote under the image and the blank circle could suggest an empty space, a new beginning for the people who changed their names or could be symbolising heaven where everything is pure and tranquil.
Pg 3 (500 words): Analyse second artist/photographer in relation to your essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.
My second photographer I will be looking at is Umberto Verdoliva and his project What is a dream? Focusing on how he has created a narrative through layering images/ multiple exposures. He takes two real moments captured over time and merges them to create a new meaningful and unique image. Recreating a scene, an atmosphere, short reality/snapshot from something that existed in different times and places.
Image from What is a dream?
Image from What is a dream?
He currently lives in Treviso, Italy and produces most his work from the streets of his whereabouts. Umberto Verdoliva’s images are part of street photography which is a genre of photography that records everyday life in public places. Being in the public setting enables the photographer to take candid picturesof strangers, sometimes without them knowing. Street photography does not have to be taken on the streets, the aim of it is to capture culture and lifestyle. Images should tell a story or document a moment. Some street photography is created to make the viewer pause and question themselves.
Verdoliva likes street photography because it has helped him think about his daily routines and life, constantly looking for poetry and beauty in his surroundings and street life around him.
In 2013 he founded ‘SPONTANEA’ which was an Italian group dedicated to street photography, but this ended in 2019. Verdoliva has presented workshops, exhibitions, portfolio readings, presentations and writes articles on photography, showing his passion for the subject.
Verdoliva takes an interesting approach to street photography, looking at angles and geometric, his style being sensitive. Taking ordinary moments and transforming them into something extraordinary to focus on the poetry and significance. All his photographs are made on film and are double exposed to create the effect of two images one which means that preparation is important for his images. Always out and about looking for connections between things and people and the atmosphere/feeling in each place. He creates new realities by merging, mixing element from completely different places. By his precision and careful planning, we learn how attentive he is as a photographer as well as his sure sense of composition and in showing a story in a short fragment in time.
Image from What is a dream?
The image includes a man walking on a pavement into what looks like a plastered picture of a close up shot of a woman, like he is walking into a new world. The street picture is taken at eye level from a slight distance so he could get the man and the pavement in the picture. Verdoliva takes his pictures at random when he is out but plans for possible outcomes. The image has no specific name but is part of his ‘What is a dream?’ series which is about getting the viewer to use their imagination.
The image is in black and white which creates a high tonal range throughout the image emphasising the contrast between light and dark. The lighting would have been from the natural daylight which translates to the images’ softness, it is not harsh and bold, which creates a ghostly feeling as it is light and empty. even though the image has layers to it, it still has a short depth of field and feels 2D. There is a lot of textures in the outcome from the wall in the background, the peeling plaster sheet and the close-up portrait adds to the textures. These create quite harsh lines, like dry brush strokes in a painting, adding depth and grain to the image.
The background image with the man walking follows the rule of third as the horizon is in the bottom third and the main subjects are off centre, creating the perfect composition. The Woman also looks like she is looking over her shoulder as if the man is following her which creates an atmospheric feeling.
The image contains a mixture of geometric and organic shapes like the hair in the portrait of the girl and the run-down wall in the background and geometric shapes like the pavement lines which also is a form of repetition. The white solid line which is the edge of the paper that the man is walking into, could link to the idea of walking into a new world using the Solid white line as a divide between the two places, acting as a door. This creates a dark and eerie mood overall in the image. Verdoliva would have planned this as likes to get people to question themselves and their imaginations while looking at his images especially for this project.
Conclusion (250-500 words): Draw parallels, explore differences/ similarities between artists/photographers and that of your own work that you have produced
Both artists approach narrative in photography differently but still tell the story they want to be told. They use multiple images to tell a story, Umberto Verdoliva uses double exposures and Gupta uses sequencing. When it comes to the stories themselves that each photographer is trying to portray they are different. Gupta focuses on the history of people migrating to India for safety whereas Verdoliva does not base his narratives on anything, he looks for opportunities around him and tells the story he wants in that moment.
Umberto Verdoliva, Image from What is dream?
Shipla Gupta, Image from Altered Inheritances
Both of their photographic styles also contrast each other, Verdoliva clearly takes his images in a street photography style, capturing things in the moment. In contrast Gupta’s images seem to be more pre meditated in the way that her images are structured. She also includes a lot of objects in her sequences which is very different to street photography that focuses on scenes and people.
My own outcome
When creating my own responses using old family photos and new images I took inspiration from Gupta’s sequences and split my images like she has. In my opinion this links to the divide in time because the old family images are from around 15 years ago and the new images are taken in the present day.
My own outcome
This idea of merging two different moments in time and creating a new outcome also links to Verdoliva’s work because that is what he does with his images and is his main principle behind taking them.
Bibliography: List all relevant sources used
Elena Martinique 2016, Reading the Narrative Photography
Hone in on the identity of a rugby player a part of a team and explore more intimate sides of his life overall telling the story of how identity shifts and how true personality is hard to find.
Begins with introducing a rugby team and sets the scene in terms of the aesthetic qualities of the individuals that belong to this community. The narrative then begins to explore one person in this community acting as a part of this setting. After the introduction of this character the story begins to reveal more about this character such as what car he drives, where he lives, and his other interests. It then begins to tell the story about an emotional side of the character. This will begin by delving into the idea of a façade that the character has adopted. It will break into ideas of a hidden sadness and forced masculinity. The story will conclude with this façade being emphasised as the character is seen back in the original setting.
The story will be told through sequentially ordered and aesthetically thought out images along with the addition of captions and an essay that responds to a question this narrative poses.
Shoot 1:
What – Rugby team, individual player as pert of a team environment
Where – Jersey Reds Rugby Club
Why – To introduce the main subject of the project and give vewier insight into his identity as a part of a rugby team
How – Close focus, high detail, fast shutter speed
When – at a evening training session
Shoot 2 :
What – Shoot the subject in a more intimate way to explore his individual identity away from other people. Shoot his house, his car, his family etc
When – During the whole day, a Sunday where he is at home
How – interrogate the subject by his use of central framing and and neutrally arranged compositions. crisp detail while laying down a blanket of warm hues used to accentuate gestural echoes, emotion, plays of light and texture.
Why – It then begins to tell the story about an emotional side of the character. This will begin by delving into the idea of a façade that the character has adopted.
Where – Subject house
Shoot 3
What – The subject back in a social environment at the pub with his teammates
When – during a social event
Why – façade being emphasised as the character is seen back in the original setting.
How – interrogate the subject by his use of central framing and and neutrally arranged compositions. crisp detail while laying down a blanket of warm hues used to accentuate gestural echoes, emotion, plays of light and texture.
Doug DuBois (born 1960) is an American photographer living in Syracuse, New York.
Most of DuBois’s photographs are portraits, and he is best known for his intimate family shots. He is part of a group of contemporary American photographers, including Philip Lorca diCorcia, Laurie Simmons, Cindy Sherman and Tina Barney, who have depicted domestic spaces predicting transformations of family life in a “tide wave of individualism and late capitalist aspirations”.
During Doug’s tertiary education studying a Bachelor of Arts, his father experienced a near fatal accident and spent several years recuperating at home. Dubois noted the process as a “Kind of emotional protection”. His mother was the primary caregiver of his father and during this time Doug experienced the decent of his mother into a deep depression resulting in subsequent decay of his parents marriage as well as the maturation of his siblings. family portraits formed the basis for a group of works around his family that would continue for twenty-four years and eventually be published by Aperture as a picture book titled All the Days and Nights. DuBois’ concern for his family, both himself and others, was also evident in a later set of photographs, “Avella”, which presented life in the mining town Avella, where his father grew up. Themes of economic turmoil and provincial life are also central to a recent series of photographs by DuBois, published under the title My Last Day at Seventeen. This is the project I want will be taking inspiration from for my project. This is because Doug is able to unveil the true identity of the subjects in this project. He does this by capturing the scene in which they live and their personal styles that give us great personal insight into the subjects he shoots. His work forces the viewer to interrogate the subject by his use of central framing and and neutrally arranged compositions. His images are usually taken with a 4 x 5 large format camera which allow his to capture great amounts of crisp detail while laying down a blanket of warm hues used to accentuate gestural echoes, emotion, plays of light and texture.
The above image is part of Doug’s collection; “My Last Day at Seventeen”. This collection was published in 2015 and was a project to highlight themes of economic turmoil and provincial life as well as the idea of teenagers coming of age in these conditions. “Doug DuBois was first introduced to a group of teenagers from the Russell Heights housing estate while he was an artist-in-residence at the Sirius Arts Centre in Cobh, on the southwest coast of Ireland. He was fascinated by the insular neighbourhood, in which “everyone seems to be someone’s cousin, former girlfriend, or spouse.” Little can happen there that isn’t seen, discussed, distorted beyond all reason, and fiercely defended against any disapprobation from the outside. DuBois gained entry when Kevin and Eirn (two participants of a workshop he taught) took him to a local hangout spot, opening his eyes to a world of not-quite-adults struggling — publicly and privately — through the last days of their childhood. Over the course of five years, DuBois returned to Russell Heights. People came and left, relationships formed and dissolved, and babies were born. Combining portraits, spontaneous encounters, and collaborative performances, the images in My Last Day at Seventeen exist in a delicate balance between documentary and fiction. A powerful follow-up to DuBois’ acclaimed first book, All the Days and Nights, this volume provides an incisive examination of the uncertainties of growing up in Ireland today, while highlighting the unique relationship sustained between artist and subject” .
The image features a natural lighting scheme which brings authenticity to the idea of capturing the true nature of the location as well as the subject. This allows the image to be consistently exposed with no artistic efforts to create a darker mood but rather to capture detail from the scene. The image has a warm hue which accentuates a homely mood and the orange hair and warm skin of the Irish teenager. This hue helps achieve a smooth glow over the whole image.
Doug uses a narrow aperture to ensure both the Irish boy as well as the whole kitchen is in focus, this allows the viewer to see the coffee cups and the curtains and the syrup which gives insight into the subject and the themes of economic turmoil and provincial life.
The subject is positioned slightly left of centre frame, this allows focus to be placed equally on the subject and the scene around him to place focus on the aesthetic of provincial housing. It also gives the image a unique shape.
The subject is seen to have his head resting on his hand with his facial expressions signalling he is unimpressed or bored. This presents ideas of growing up in an impoverished neighbourhood as an Irish teenager that Dubois was trying to capture.
Tom Jenkins
To develop my project I have researched the field of of sport photography and take inspiration from proficient artists in this field. Tom Jenkins is a sports photographer who has been shooting sports for over 3 decades and has recieved a number of awards for his work across many different sports. I want to analyse his work regarding rugby.
Canon Ambassador Tom Jenkins attached his Canon camera and L-series lens to a stadium lighting rig over the rugby pitch to take this aerial shot. It gave him a unique perspective of a dramatic moment just short of the try line in a Rugby World Cup 2015 match between Wales and Fiji in Cardiff.
“A passion for sport and an understanding of it, the ability to perform under pressure, fast reflexes and physical fitness: the skillset required of a professional sports photographer isn’t dissimilar to that required of an athlete.“
The sport of rugby is a physically demanding sport which can be compared to that of a violent war between two teams, Tom takes this element of chaotic rampage and captures a dramatic point in time emphasising the beauty of the sport which can be related to a dance troupe rather than a war. He uses close focus and crisp detail to capture the intense emotions of individual players rather than the whole picture of what is happening in the rugby game.
The above image was taken by Tom in 2016. It is of a rugby game between two local English town clubs. What is pictured is a part of the game of rugby called a ‘line out’ where a player throws the ball from the touch line/border of the field to his team mates who are hoisted into the air and have to take control of the ball while their opponents try to do the same. The image is given its highly theatrical and dramatic feel from the way Tom uses natural light. The image is back lit meaning the light is shining from behind the players making them look like silhouettes which adds a romanticised aesthetic to the image. The natural light gives the image a warm hue and further adds to the romanticised sky in the background. This warm dramatic aesthetic presents the theme of rugby being more than just an aggressive, hyper-masculine sport but rather a thing of beauty.
Tom uses a narrow aperture and a low ISO to add the dramatic, underexposed composition as well as get the background as well as the foreground in focus. Tom used a very fast shutter speed in this image to capture a fast moving scene with little motion blur, this is something common amongst most sports photography, however, many sports photographers have experimented with a slower shutter speed to emphasise and capture the speed of rugby.
Mark Kolbe
Other considerable artist inspirations for this project
How does Cindy Sherman or Martine Gutierrez represent and mimic stereotypes in their photography?
Introduction
“The artist disappears, no one knows where he went, he leaves his signs here and there he is seen in this part of town and, the next moment, miraculously, on the other side of town. One sense him rather than sees him- A Lounger, a drunkard, a tennis-player, a bicycle rider, always violent denying that he did. Everyone gives a different description of the criminal.”– Ray Gun
Cindy Sherman is well known for her different costumes interpretations and her masquerades, in fact when Cindy Sherman was just a child, she loved to play dress up and she would create elaborate costumes out of a trunk of old clothes, many of which belonged to her great grandmother. As her career in photography blossomed, she would search flea markets to uncover old clothes, where she began to be inspired by the people surrounding her. Within her photography, she played a distinctive character in each of her shoots, creating identities much like Hitchcock’s heroes, a busty Monroe, an abused victim, a corpse, a cowgirl, a desperate clown and more on. Was her dressing up an escape? ” If you don’t like me this way, how about you like me this way?” “Or maybe you like this version of me.” (Cindy Sherman in Reilly, 2018) This reinforces the symbolism. She uses multiple characters in her photography to show a sense of diversity and mimic the numerous stereotypes that she came across. It is amazing how many characters Cindy Sherman can play at once. It is not just the way she poses. The style, the clothes, the accessories, the make-up, the decorations, the light, the gestures of expression, the framing are as important to create the ”Mise-en-scene”. Martine Gutierrez is the artist with whom I can identify with the most. In her photos, fashion is especially important. They help to represent stereotypes of indigenous women. Her images have an eccentric style, common gold, a mixture of pop and Indigenous culture. The colours and details in some of her images are fascinating and she uses Guatemalan textiles from her family’s collection styled with jewellery, bananas, high heels, and other accessories. She illustrates a contemporary living history, not one that is just buried and dismantles the tropes of nostalgia and poverty that are stereotypically associated with indigenous identity, to quote the artist. Her photos also confront the message of the long and harmful history of the fashion industry and how they appropriate of the Indigenous culture. “ Fashion is a good veneer for making people to look at what otherwise might make them feel uncomfortable”(Martine Gutierrez, 2018, artist magazine) For my own photographic responses I am intending to address Mexican stereotypes using masquerade. The name “Masquerade” takes up the theme of the “mask”. It is an intriguing subject to perform in photography since it hides the real face and therefore allows you to change your appearance without changing your identity. I will explore fashion and elements of clothing and how both males and females’ dress. The styling of the images that I make in response will reference a fashion shoot but also include parody.
In 1977 Cindy Sherman began a series named Untitled Film Stills. I find this series very captivating since she exposes the stereotype of women in classic movies from the 50’s /60’s that we feel we must have seen. Sherman usually dresses very feminine, using make-up, wigs, and different poses to mimic the portrayal of women who are passive and sexualised conforming to male fantasies. Sherman always uses the male gaze by representing women in underwear, heavy make-up, or typically feminine costumes, to criticise this stereotype. She is disguising herself in different female roles like a sex object, career girl, housewife. Between 1970 and 1980 a debate emerged in photography by feminist. Criticizing Hollywood classics Laura Mulvey argued how women were portrayed in these films, they are only there for the pleasure of male viewers. In his seminal book Ways of Seeing (1972), art critic John Berger wrote, ”men look at women. Women watched themselves being looked at. This determined not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves” (Berger in Wells 2003: 324). Mulvey also noted that between the camera framing the woman and the point of view of the male character looking at the woman’s character attract the audience. Reinforces the objectification of women in media. But the debate does not stop there since women in addition to being objected they have to have a specific appearance often young, slim and light-skinned. Latinos in the western media are the same, they have a specific physique. Latinas are exotic, seen with tanned brown hair and luscious lips. Men have long black mustacho, black hair, taint, small. Feminists also have argued that nudity in photography or in art is masquerade, it is an excuse to contemplate nudity, even if it is depicted in an abstract or pleasing way.
In her photography, Martine Gutierrez produces narrative scenes that use elements of pop culture to play with personal and collective identity in terms of race, gender, class, and culture. Indigenous woman is a fictional fashion magazine that features editorials detailed through Gutierrez’s work controlling her own identity. She is her own editor, model, photographer, stylist make-up, designer, and author. Gutierrez wonders how identity is formed, how it expresses itself, values itself and weighted. The magazine is a celebration of Mayan Indian heritage, it is constantly evolving, the magazine investigates the ways in which our sense of self is socially constructed and makes us ask more questions that we do not have the answers to. Throughout the indigenous woman, Gutiérrez challenges the stereotypes and the limitation that one can have in their identity that is imposed by white supremacy and colonialism. In her exhibition she reconstructs certain advertisements with a touch of parody. These skits explicitly illustrate these themes and allow you to express yourself more openly. Like on the tagline that appears on the cover girl’s mascara ad ”maybe she is born with it maybe it’s white supremacy”(Martine Gutierrez, cover girl ad, Indigenous Woman p43) and another advertisement for whitening soap features on the label is written ”keep out of eyes, keep away from children, animals, natural resources and indigenous cultures. Destroys everything on contact”(Martine Gutierrez, white wash ad, Indigenous Woman p13) .As the magazine letter to the editor states ” Indigenous woman marries the traditional to the contemporary, the native to the postcolonial and marginalized to the mainstream. In the pursuit of genuine selfhood revealing cultural inequities along the way’‘ Another interesting series she has is her series of demons called Deities of the ancient world resurrected in hair. She use element of masquerade to represent Aztec Gods. Gutiérrez is dressed in gold jewellery, masks, and a crown made of braided hair. They are Aztec gods that manifest concepts of love, duality, wealth… The artist said: “I was looking for an iconography that would celebrate the bodies of the binary deities even larger than the bodies because, in general, we tend to see ourselves in the image of a god, whatever that god is”.(Martine Gutierrez, 2018 Indigenous woman p92)
I have used this essay to investigate how Cindy Sherman and Martine Gutierrez use elements of mimic and stereotypes in their photographs to express what they see in their surroundings and the media (such as films, advertising, etc.) Thanks to these artists, I learned how to express my feelings with a touch of humour in relation to the stereotypes of Latinos in my photography. They each adopt the same approach for different battles, Martine Gutierrez wants to show the beauty of indigenous culture while Cindy Sherman wants to fight for the women’s paper in Hollywood classics. I learned about the feminists like Laura Mulvey that fought for women’s role in the media during the 70s. Which led to artist like Cindy Sherman to mock those stereotypes. After doing research for the essay I discovered more personal matter about both artists, Since a little kid Cindy Sherman love the idea of costumes and imitate people she saw on the streets. For Martine Gutiérrez it is important to demonstrate her culture, Indigenous Woman is a resource to reflect on heritage and narrative.
Bibliography:
Wells, L. (ed), (2003), The Photographer Reader. London: Routledge
Reilly, M. (ed), (2018), Courtesy the artist and Metro pictures. New York
My area of study is going to be how the bible and how it can be expressed through photography.
The artists I will be studying is going to be Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin. This is because they have used bible quotes and incorporated an image corresponding to that quote. In a similar way I will do the same; choose a bible quote that I relate to and make an image corresponding to it.
I will also look into David LaChapelle because he has made interesting photographs that successfully relate to the bible
Pg 1.
surreal photography
what is it
when did it occur
biblical renaissance paintings
Pg 2.
Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin
who are they
what do they do
a famous project that relates to the bible and photography
image analysis
Pg 3.
David LaChappela
biography
Jesus My homeboy project
image analysis
Conclusion
similarities and differences between the artists
how their projects relate to each other
different ism both explored
how successful I find that the bible has been portrayed through photography – is it blasphemous is it simply a way to visualise the bible, etc.
Biography; the two artists I’m studying are Edward Honaker and Gabriel Isaak. Sources and texts about them and their work;
Edward Honaker-
At the age of 19, photographer Edward Honaker was diagnosed with a mood disorder that affects about 14.8 million American adults. This disorder is characterized by a persistent feeling of sadness, one which acts as an overwhelming obstacle during an individual’s day-to-day life. In other words – just two years ago – Honaker was diagnosed with depression.
“All I knew is that I became bad at the things I used to be good at, and I didn’t know why,” the photographer told The Huffington Post. “Your mind is who you are, and when it doesn’t work properly, it’s scary.”
To convey his inner thoughts and feelings, Honaker turned to his camera and creativity. What results is a surreal series of self-portraits – which are filled with powerful symbolism. Each black-and-white image is as artistic as it is revealing. If you’ve coped with depression or are currently coping with depression, Honaker’s work can act as a beacon of empathy. And if you haven’t, you can still learn a lot from the creative’s telling snapshots.
“Mental health disorders are such a taboo topic. If you ever bring it up in conversation, people awkwardly get silent, or try to tell you why it’s not a real problem. When I was in the worst parts of depression, the most helpful thing anyone could have done was to just listen to me – not judging, not trying to find a solution, just listen. I’m hoping that these images will help open up conversation about mental health issues. Everyone is or will be affected by them one way or another, and ignoring them doesn’t make things better.”
Gabriel Isak-
The objective of Gabriel Isak’s art is to shine a light on the experiences of being and the states of mind those brings along. His subjects are anonymous with the slightest glimmerings of consciousness, imprisoned in monochromatic settings, so the viewer can envision oneself as the subject, reflecting back on one’s own experiences and journey in life.
Gabriel Isak’s art entails surreal and melancholic scenes where he invites the viewer to interact with the inner world of solitary figures that symbolize our own unconscious states. He uses photography as a medium to draw and paint surreal images, minimal and graphic in its aesthetic, rich in symbolism and emotion, focusing on themes inspired by human psychology, dreams and romanticism, as well as his own experiences, especially the years he went through depression.
essay question; In what way have Edward Honaker and Gabriel Isak represented mental health through photography?
essay plan;
Essay question: In what way have Edward Honaker and Gabriel Isak represented mental health through photography?
Opening quote– “Your mind is who you are, and when it doesn’t work properly, it’s scary.”
Introduction (250-500 words): my area of study is mental health thats shown through photography. The artists i will be looking at are Edward Honaker and Gabriel Isak as they show different mental issues and feelings within the mind through their images. I will be responding to their work through showing the mental issues that teenagers go through by taking inspiration from their style of work and show it in my own way.
Pg 1 (500 words): Historical/ theoretical context within art, photography and visual culture relevant to mental health. Make links to art movements/ isms and some of the methods employed by critics and historian.
Pg 2 (500 words): Analyse Edward Honaker in relation to my essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.
Pg 3 (500 words): Analyse Gabriel Isak in relation to my essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.
Conclusion (250-500 words): Draw parallels, explore differences/ similarities between artists/photographers and that of your own work that you have produced
Bibliography: (in the first paragraph)
essay;
Essay question: In what way have Edward Honaker and Gabriel Isak represented mental health through photography?
intro-“Your mind is who you are, and when it doesn’t work properly, it’s scary.”(Honaker 2018:2).
My study explores and raises the issues of different mental health issues within teenagers and intends to show how it can make you feel if you deal with anxiety or depression from a young age and the effects it has on your everyday life and how it may affect your future and relationship with others around you. This area interests me as so many people around you to tend to be suffering from these issues and it’s so important to realise how many people may be dealing with personal problems and how it both effects them individually and also people near them, such as family and friends. Through photography you see how these mental issues are real and in some cases very serious and the effect it has on teenagers. In my study I’m analysing the work of Edward Honaker and Gabriel Isak as they both raise awareness of mental health issues in different ways and how our mind is detached from our real body, as it’s not there with you 100% and not functioning properly, as well as you feeling depersonalised from yourself. Edward Honaker presents his mental state by taking simple full body portraits of himself around his house and includes many self-portraits to tell his story, he must do this by using a tripod and then later edit all his images by blurring his face and masking his identity that represents his mental state and that’s how he shows this topic through his work, almost making him look disconnected from his mind and body. On the other hand Gabriel Isaak interprets and presents mental health in a more digital way and uses far more editing to show mental health. Most of his images are taken in extremely open spaces (mostly with an all white or blue background) this creates a sense of loneliness and sadness. He then uses silhouette figures in his images to present the mental state , usually its either two people or a group. Most of the time he uses all black silhouettes or sometimes white too with hoods on, this clearly represents people and their present or conscious state as two different figures, one being your body and the other the state of your mind and the feeling of emptiness that’s presented by the open space.
para 1- the area I chose to explore in my personal study has the closest link to is surrealism. The history of mental health in photography was perfectly presented back in the mid 1980s which was developed by Jo Spence and her work on photo-therapy. This shows that mental health has always had an important role in peoples lives as well as in photography. Jo Spence believed that “depression or anger is often so well contained, that eventually many of us become silenced or ill”. (Martin and Spence 2003: pg 24) She wanted individuals to connect with their own intimacies and struggles which is what made her begin start taking photographs. She developed photo-therapy when she got diagnosed with breast cancer and wanted to used photography as a medium to work on psychological health. Her work was well known as it showed the” importance of representing the ill body, one that is affected by the invisible and the hidden”. (Dennett 2009: 7) In photo-therapy, self -portraits are a very powerful tool to express emotions. This is because we start a dialogue between our thinking mind and our ‘gut’ to draw from an inexhaustible source of meanings, which must be expressed. The self-portrait can be incredibly empowering. It forces us into the now, and helps us perceive and express our essential humanity in a photograph. Jo spence used three early methods ‘therapeutic staging’, ‘mirror therapy’, and ‘Scripting’. Phototherapy is very strong way an individual can express their mental health or any other issues they’re dealing with and share it with anyone who might be going through. This made me interested in this topic as I think its important to raise awareness to all these different types of issues. Surrealism was closely involved with contemporary developments in psychology and psychoanalysis. Freud’s work had a huge impact on psychoanalysis as he researched dreams and dream analysis to understand the cause of many mental illnesses such as depression or phobias, doing this by accessing the unconscious and figuring out what different objects or symbols in dreams represent in real life. Freud’s conception of the unconscious as a site of primal violence and conflict repressed from consciousness played a role in the work of many surrealist artists. Max Ernst and André Masson, in particular, frequently employed images of violence, his theories had a huge impact on photographers work. (Show illustration of Surrealist work of art)
Paragraph 2–
The first photographer I chose to study is Edward Honaker. He focuses on photographing mental health in a very personal way as he from the age of 19 was diagnosed with a mood disorder. This disorder is characterized by a persistent feeling of sadness, one which acts as an overwhelming obstacle during an individual’s day-to-day life. In other words – just two years ago – Honaker was diagnosed with depression. He focuses on blurring out his face in his images or tries to mask his identity away, this creates a concept of not knowing where his mind is really at or he doesn’t even know who he is anymore. You can see that all his images are in black white which creates a sad mood as there’s no colour this clearly interprets his own feelings and he does this by taking self-portraits. His own life from a very young age influenced his life which is why he takes his own images and the whole story behind his photography is about his own experience and his own mental health which makes his images so much more powerful when you know the photographer behind the work is dealing with the problems he’s photographing. To convey his inner thoughts and feelings, Honaker turned to his camera and creativity. What results is a surreal series of self-portraits – which are filled with powerful symbolism. Each black-and-white image is as artistic as it is revealing. If you’ve coped with depression or are currently coping with depression, Honaker’s work can act as a beacon of empathy. When he spoke about his experience he said “All I knew is that I became bad at the things I used to be good at, and I didn’t know why,”(Honaker 2018:1). This inspired me for the first shoot, which consisted of plain headshots which I then edited out to create a sense of depersonalization and losing yourself/personality due to mental health. Honaker’s work links it with history of mental health and Surrealism art movement; it involves dreamscapes, symbolism and the unconscious mind; Surrealism art changed modernism by encouraging artists to delve into their imaginations. Surrealism was steeped in the psychoanalytic works of Sigmund Freud and centred on understanding the unconscious. This can explain certain disorders such as depression which is sometimes caused due to childhood events that remain in the unconscious and the disorder is resolved when brought back into the conscious as an adult which links into Edward’s experience as he had to deal with depression from a young age, and if it wasn’t for the Surrealism art movement, photographers wouldn’t be expressing their emotional states. His work significantly links in with surrealism as the ability to evoke dream-like scenarios in photography became central to surrealism. Photo effects such as double exposure, blurring and distortion helped create images that were evocative, hallucinatory, and sometimes upsetting. The purpose of these effects was to create an image alienated from reality as if it was a window into another dimension. Edward uses many of those editing processes such as blurring for most of his images.
Edward Honaker’s work
Paragraph 3 Structure (500 words):
The second photographer I chose to study and become inspired by is Gabriel Isaak. The objective of Gabriel Isaak’s art is to shine a light on the experiences of being and the states of mind those brings along. His subjects are anonymous with the slightest glimmerings of consciousness, imprisoned in monochromatic settings, so the viewer can envision oneself as the subject, reflecting back on one’s own experiences and journey in life. He focuses on themes inspired by human psychology, dreams and romanticism, as well as his own experiences, especially the years he went through depression. What I find interesting about his work is the way he edits his images which makes them almost look like a dream and something that isn’t real which creates a unique idea of his mental state, like it’s all a dream. His photographs have a big emotional impact as it creates this sense of loneliness and being alone somewhere in a dream with your mind. The photographer intended to create a new vision of mental health and romanticise it instead of making it look like a scary thing to be afraid of. Both of my photographers link perfectly with each other as both of them have dealt with their own issues with depression and decided to photograph their experience in two completely different unique ways. Both of them create an idea in the audience’s mind of what it’s like to deal with these issues or if someone from the audience is already dealing with the same problems it can create a sense of feeling safe and comfort knowing there are others that feel the same and their choosing to photograph their feelings in a unique way. The photographer Gabriel Isaak inspired me for my photoshoots at home and in a very open natural environment to create an illusion of a dream as well as use more advanced photoshop skills to achieve this idea. Surrealism would have had a huge impact on Isaak’s work as surrealism derived significant inspiration from psychoanalysis, developed by Sigmund Freud to treat mental disorders. “The set of theories and techniques were established to delve into the unconscious mind It aimed to illuminate the causes of abnormal and unhealthy mental habits.” (ref source) According to psychoanalysis, the mind is separated into the conscious and unconscious. Psychoanalytic treatment aimed to bring the repressed desires and fears of the unconscious mind to the surface. This can be seen in his photos because as mentioned before the silhouettes he uses represent the conscious mind and how it can feel detached from you body. One of the founding fathers of surrealism Andre Breton cited psychoanalysis as a gateway to restoring one’s artistic identity, liberated from conformity and social normality. (ref source) He asserted that the application of psychoanalytic thought and automatism in art would make someone a true surrealist artist. For example Rene Magritte’s work , a famous surrealist artist in 1927, shows how mental health was presented back in the early days. This art shows most of the woman’s face cut out and dragged away from her body , unmasking what’s underneath it which looks like a solid, dark wooden texture of nothing with small pins it, implying there’s a hard material underneath her face that acts as a ‘mask’ and the texture underneath it is the woman’s mental health which is quite hidden and acting as a secret to help hide her real identity. This is really similar in how Gabriel Isaak presents mental health in his images, through using open spaces , like Magritte’s image that has an ocean, and using plain silhouettes or shadows of people to present their conscious and mental state- creating a feeling of loneliness and emptiness as your mind travels away from your body due to having a disorder.
Start by comparing two artists; similarities/ differences. common themes, influence of surrealism/ psychoanalysis etc
“Your mind is who you are, and when it doesn’t work properly, it’s scary.”(Honaker 2018:2).
Overall I think I’ve presented my ideas and the concept of mental health very well through taking several different shoots that were inspired by my two chosen photographers. I explored how it might feel to deal with a mental illness and not really knowing how to deal with it or loosing your personality , though a simple shoot consisting of editing and blurring certain features to show uncertainty in how an individual may feel and bringing attention to the mind, as well as at home shoots to show what everyday life may be like and in big open spaces to create a sense of loneliness. I photographed an individual in a way that shows her feelings and her mental state through a series of portraits exploring her body language. I experiment with different editing techniques such as blurring out the model’s face in order to show you don’t feel like yourself when your mind isn’t working properly. A previous study I have done in my A-level photography work that links in with my personal study is the loss of identity which is when you’re not too sure what you’re doing or what you want to do when you grow up, which I achieved through edited portraits. My work will develop through editing all my images using a combination of Lightroom and Photoshop and turning them from simple headshots and full body shots into a way of presenting mental health in the style of Gabriel Isaak by selecting the model’s silhouette and filling it in with a black shadow separating one figure from her body showing the state of her mind. The digital processes I like to work with are the quick selection tool, lasso tool, and the object selection tool as well as the blurring brush to achieve the final images I want. My two photographers helped me create this vision as I could see and learnt about how mental health can be presented through a visual concept and photography as its a very difficult topic to express through photos as everyone’s experience and mind is different , they made me understand how certain editing and specific environments can help in achieving spreading the message I want.
I was able to select my final outcomes through using Lightroom and photoshop, once I know what images I wanted to use through rating them, I began to edit images I knew would go perfectly together and I was then left with my final images , ready for my personal study to be presented with these images. The more photos I took the more ways I started to think of in order to present my subject which helped me putting this project together. once I started reading into my chosen artists background and history I got a better understanding of how people who have to dealt with mental illness from a young age started using photography in order to share their experience and capture their feelings through photographing themselves which I thought was really important and really inspired me to chose quite a heavy topic for my personal project as I think mental health plays a huge part of your identity and shapes you into the person you are in the future, which all my final outcomes show successfully. as once said “Your mind is who you are, and when it doesn’t work properly, it’s scary.”(Honaker 2018:2).
Photography, as we know it today, began in the late 1830s in France. Joseph Nicéphore Niépce used a portable camera obscura to expose a pewter plate coated with bitumen to light. … Daguerreotypes, emulsion plates, and wet plates were developed almost simultaneously in the mid- to late-1800s. Photography has come a long way in its relatively short history. In almost 200 years, the camera developed from a plain box that took blurry photos to the high-tech mini computers found in today’s DSLRs and smartphones.
Camera Obscura
Camera Obscura, ancestor of the photographic camera. The Latin name means “dark chamber,” and the earliest versions, dating to antiquity, consisted of small darkened rooms with light admitted through a single tiny hole. The result was that an inverted image of the outside scene was cast on the opposite wall, which was usually whitened. For centuries the technique was used for viewing eclipses of the Sun without endangering the eyes and, by the 16th century, as an aid to drawing; the subject was posed outside and the image reflected on a piece of drawing paper for the artist to trace. Portable versions were built, followed by smaller and even pocket models; the interior of the box was painted black and the image reflected by an angled mirror so that it could be viewed right side up. The introduction of a light-sensitive plate by J.-N.Niepce created photography.
‘Fixing the Shadows’
1839 was the year that a Frenchman, Louis Daguerre and an Englishman, Henry Fox Talbot introduced rival processes that would accomplished what the called ‘fixing the shadows’ Henry Fox Talbot was an accomplished inventor however he couldn’t draw. HE wanted a way to capture what he was seeing before him and therefore started thinking about camera obscura and the chemical processes of light sensitive materials. He then began experimenting with paper coated in silver salts and shoe-box sized cameras nicknamed ‘mousetraps’ which developed something called a negative. This is when the tones in an image are reversed. Talbot realised he could produce multiple prints from these exposures making it possible to reproduce images for the masses which would go on to shape modern photography. These prints are called Calotypes. Louis Daguerre was an academically trained French painter who had an alternative response to Henry’s process. Louis developed a method of printing onto a silvered copper plate creating an image that was much clearer and sharper than that of Henry’s calotypes, these were named Daguerreotypes. However, Talbot realised producing daguerreotypes was a dead end and that human communication was through paper. Daguerreotypes did not have the ability to create a multitude of prints like the calotypes, they were also very fragile, making it a less commercially successful process. Because the early days of photography were largely financially motivated, the beginnings of photography were all about the Darwinian struggle to see which process will prosper in the industry.
Dry Plate Process
Dry plate, also known as gelatin process, is an improved type of photographic plate. It was invented by Dr. Richard L. Maddox in 1871, and had become so widely adopted by 1879 that the first dry plate factory had been established. With much of the complex chemistry work centralized into a factory, the new process simplified the work of photographers, allowing them to expand their business. Gelatin emulsions, as proposed by Maddox, were very sensitive to touch and mechanical friction and were not much more sensitive to light than collodion emulsions. Charles Harper Bennett discovered a method of hardening the emulsion, making it more resistant to friction in 1873. In 1878, Bennett discovered that by prolonged heating, the sensitivity of the emulsion could be greatly increased. George Eastman developed a machine to coat glass plates in 1879 and opened the Eastman Film and Dry Plate Company,reducing the cost of photography. A competitor of Eastman in the development and manufacture of gelatin dry plates was the architectural photographer Albert Levy.
Kodak
In 1888, inventor George Eastman invented a game-changing kind of dry, transparent, flexible photographic film that came in a roll. The film was designed for use in Eastman’s newly designed, user-friendly Kodak cameras. His first camera, the Kodak, was sold in 1888 and consisted of a box camera with 100 exposures. Later he offered the first Brownie camera, which was intended for children. By 1927, Eastman Kodak was the largest U.S. company in the industry. When Eastman was 24 he began researching how to make photography less cumbersome and easier for the average person to enjoy. After seeing a formula for a “dry plate” emulsion in a British publication, and getting tutelage from two local amateur photographers, Eastman formulated a gelatin-based paper film and a device for coating dry plates. He resigned from his bank job after launching his fledgling photography company in April 1880. In 1885, he headed to the patent office with a roll-holder device that he and camera inventor William Hall Walker had developed. This allowed cameras to be smaller and cheaper. Eastman also came up with the name Kodak, because he believed products should have their own identity, free from association with anything else. So in 1888, he launched the first Kodak camera (a few years later, he amended the company name to Eastman Kodak). The Brownie camera was launched in 1900 to target new hobbyist photographers — children — and with its $1 price tag, it also became a favourite of servicemen. Eastman supported the military in other ways as well, developing unbreakable glass lenses for gas masks and a special camera for taking pictures from planes during World War I. The Original Kodak was fitted with a rotating barrel shutter unique to this model. The shutter was set by pulling up a string on top of the camera and operated by pushing a button on the side of the camera. After taking a photograph, a key on top of the camera was used to wind the film onto the next frame.
Arguably the first modern art movement, Realism, began in France in the 1840s. Realism refers to an artistic movement characterised by subjects painted from everyday life in a naturalistic manner; however the term is also generally used to describe artworks painted in a realistic almost photographic way. Realism was a result of multiple events: the anti-Romantic movement in Germany, the rise of journalism, and the advent of photography. Each inspired new interest in accurately capturing everyday life. This attention to accuracy is evident in art produced during the movement, which featured detailed, life-like depictions of subject matter.One of the most influential leaders of the Realist movement is Gustave Courbet, a French artist committed to painting only what he could physically see.
Impressionism
1865-1885
Impressionist painters sought to capture the immediate impression of a particular moment. This was characterized by short, quick brushstrokes and an unfinished, sketch-like feel. Impressionist artists used modern life as their subject matter, painting situations like dance halls and sailboat regattas rather than historical and mythological events. Claude Monet, a French artist who spearheaded the idea of expressing one’s perceptions before nature, is virtually synonymous with the Impressionist movement. His notable works include: The Water Lily Pond (1899), Woman with a Parasol (1875), and Impression, Sunrise (1872), from which the name of the movement itself is derived.
Post Impressionism
1885-1910
Post-Impressionist painters worked independently rather than as a group, but each influential Post-Impressionist painter had similar ideals. They concentrated on subjective visions and symbolic, personal meanings rather than observations of the outside world. This was often achieved through abstract forms. Post-Impressionist painters include Georges Seurat, noted for his pointillism technique that used small, distinct dots to form an image. Vincent van Gogh is also considered a Post-Impressionist painter, searching for personal expression through his art, often through rugged brushstrokes and dark tones.
Art Nouveau
1890-1910
Art Nouveau, which translates to “New Art,” attempted to create an entirely authentic movement free from any imitation of styles that preceded it. This movement heavily influenced applied arts, graphics, and illustration. It focused on the natural world, characterized by long, sinuous lines and curves. Influential Art Nouveau artists worked in a variety of media, including architecture, graphic and interior design, jewelry-making, and painting. Czechoslovakian graphic designer Alphonse Mucha is best-known for his theatrical posters of French actress Sarah Bernhardt. Spanish architect and sculptor Antoni Gaudi went beyond focusing on lines to create curving, brightly-colored constructions like that of the Basilica de la Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.
Fauvism
1900-1935
Led by Henri Matisse, Fauvism built upon examples from Vincent van Gogh and George Seurat. As the first avant-garde, 20th-century movement, this style was characterized by expressive use of intense color, line, and brushwork, a bold sense of surface design, and flat composition. As seen in many of the works of Matisse himself, the separation of color from its descriptive, representational purpose was one of the core elements that shaped this movement. Fauvism was an important precursor of Cubism and Expressionism.
Expressionism
1905-1920
Expressionism emerged as a response to increasingly conflicted world views and the loss of spirituality. Expressionist art sought to draw from within the artist, using a distortion of form and strong colors to display anxieties and raw emotions. Expressionist painters, in aquest for authenticity, looked for inspiration beyond that of Western art and frequented ethnographic museums to revisit native folk traditions and tribal art. The roots of Expressionism can be traced to Vincent van Gogh, Edvard Munch, and James Ensor. Prominent groups including Die Brücke (The Bridge) and Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) formed so artists could publish works and express their ideals collectively.
Cubism
1907-1914
Cubism was established by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, who rejected the concept that art should copy nature. They moved away from traditional techniques and perspectives; instead, they created radically fragmented objects through abstraction. Many Cubist painters’ works are marked by flat, two-dimensional surfaces, geometric forms or “cubes” of objects, and multiple vantage points. Often, their subjects weren’t even discernible.
Surrealism
1916-1950
Surrealism emerged from the Dada art movement in 1916, showcasing works of art that defied reason. Surrealists denounced the rationalist mindset. They blamed this thought process on events like World War I and believed it to repress imaginative thoughts. Surrealists were influenced by Karl Marx and theories developed by Sigmund Freud, who explored psychoanalysis and the power of imagination. Influential Surrealist artists like Salvador Dalí tapped into the unconscious mind to depict revelations found on the street and in everyday life. Dalí’s paintings in particular pair vivid and bizarre dreams with historical accuracy.
Pop Art
1950-1960
Pop art is one of the most recognizable artistic developments of the 20th century. The movement transitioned away from methods used in Abstract Expressionism, and instead used everyday, mundane objects to create innovative works of art that challenged consumerism and mass media. This introduction to identifiable imagery was a shift from the direction of modernism. Pop artists like Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein sought to establish the idea that art can draw from any source and there is no hierarchy of culture to disrupt that. Perhaps the most famous pop culture work of art is Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans production.
Minimalism
1960-1970
The Minimalist movement emerged in New York as a group of younger artists began to question the overly expressive works of Abstract Expressionist artists. Minimalist art instead focused on anonymity, calling attention to the materiality of works. Artists urged viewers to focus on precisely what was in front of them, rather than draw parallels to outside realities and emotive thoughts through the use of purified forms, order, simplicity, and harmony. American artist Frank Stella was of the earliest adopters of Minimalism, producing nonrepresentational paintings, as seen in his Black Paintings completed between 1958 and 1960. Each features a pattern of rectilinear stripes of uniform width printed in metallic black ink.
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