Francesca Stern Woodman was an American photographer best known for her black and white pictures featuring either herself or female models. Many of her photographs show women, naked or clothed, blurred, merging with their surroundings, or whose faces are obscured.

She was born April 3rd in 1958, in Denver, Colorado and died January 19th, 1981 at just 22 after taking her own life, this makes her art work not only more upsetting but also incredible impactful.

Art enthusiasts are inthralled with Woodman’s work and are convinced thats all of her work, self portrait or otherwise was in representation of her mind and experiences.

Woodman didn’t have many years of photography under her belt and most of her work was done as a student, despite this she was clearly one of the most promising artists of her time in both her innovation and her talent.

Ana Mendieta was a Cuban-American performance artist, sculptor, painter, and video artist who is best known for her “earth-body” artwork. She is considered one of the most influential Cuban-American artists of the post-World War II era. Born in Havana, Cuba, Mendieta left for the United States in 1961

she was born November 18th, 1948 in Havana Cuba and died September 8th 1985 at 38 in Greenwich village New York , her husband was accused of pushing her out of the 34th story apartment in Greenwich village but was acquitted of all murder charges.

As an immigrant Mendieta claimed she always felt a disconect to the US.

she created her work in the contemporary and modern art period and her work was revolutionary.

her sculptures were innovative and site specific, so the impact was intense along with her photography, it was challenging and controversial.

I particularly enjoy her series of images untitled ‘glass on body imprints’ they are a personal favourite because of the large range of photos each extremely individual and each convey a different emotional experience for the viewer, they all feel extremely intentional yet silly and unserious with a much darker undertone than apparent at first glance

This specific image is intended to convey violence but the whole series is intended to convey beauty and violence and when considering Ana Mendietas overall tendency to focus her photos intentions on feminism, it is not a stretch to consider whether these photos were taken in attempt to convey domestic violence. when considering this it is impossible not to take into account the accusations made towards her husband surrounding her death, although he was acquitted from charges relating her murder ( supposedly pushing her out of their apartment window ) it would not do her art justice not to speculate especially considering the nature of her photography and art.

when looking at this image it is impossible to ignore the way Mendieta has contorted her face against a sheet of glass, in doing this she was created so many interesting shapes as the focal point throughout this series of images.

Because Mendieta used glass in these photos it creates almost a 2D effect where her face meets the glass, this creates a sense of impact again linking back to her theme of violence, as if she’s been thrown and has collided with something.

her use of glass itself is an interesting choice especially considering the links back to domestic violence throughout her work.

in my personal opinion the use of glass is not as simple as the use of a clear surface, if that was the case plastic could be used. I believe the use of glass is a very clever metaphor from Mendieta. glass in itself is a strong substance and can be modified to protect from bullets, but when dropped at the wrong angle this supposedly strong substance can not only break but completely shatter.

it is also interesting to interpret this use of glass as symbolism for watching the world go by from an isolated position, using how people typically use glass for windows to create the thought provoking notion that she is watching from the inside and looking out unable to reach help with her personal situation despite the substance keeping her from it being completely see through, obvious when you look.

How does this relate to my work?

I decided to use Mendieta as a reference for my art because of the eccentric nature to her photography, she broke boundary’s during her time and was a force to be reckoned with in the art and photography world.

although her work is officially considered surrealism I believe her work leans towards the absurdist movement wit her being very ahead of her time in her beliefs and urgency in acting on her beliefs creating protest art that shook her generation and still effects us to this day, her images have not dulled with time and the impact of her work still holds strong and continues to be intense and insightful.

i want my images to hold that same intensity and they way she uses shapes, form and texture throughout all of her photography greatly inspires me, and I aim to do the same with my work in creating interesting shapes and use of form throughout my photo taking and editing process, along with this her beliefs and aims definitely align with mine when creating photos with intention.

from the femininity shoot I found that these were the best images. These images portray femininity to me because these photos highlight the stereotypical woman, They highlight this because of things used such as makeup, flower and the mirror.

My ideas for the edits on this photoshoot:

1.For some of these images I will not do any major edits and put them into monochrome to link with Cindy Sherman’s photographs.

2. Also taking inspiration of Cindy Sherman I will use simple portraits that were taken in this photoshoot and recreate images similar to Cindy Sherman`s distortion images.

3. I feel like these images turned out pretty good, however they have this focus on beauty so for an edit it could be a good idea to put the model on a beauty magazine like vogue.

4. Another edit idea I can do is montage or double exposure, I think I could put 3 different images from this photoshoot on one canvas/document with some having a lower opacity than others.

5. Colour Splash, another possible edit I can do with these photos is a colour splash where the image is in black and white and a section or part of the image is normal/in colour.

Masculinity Photoshoot

These are the best images From my masculinity photoshoot, This photoshoot was a good shoot however I could have took more photos, close ups of the models body to show the stereotypical masculine body in detail. This photoshoot links with my inspiration of Sam Contis, they link because both Sam Contis and my photographs show the masculine body and to really get my photos similar to photos by him I will put some into monochrome.

Other edit Ideas I can do with this photoshoot:

1. Basic editing for example only changing the tone, exposure and etc to make the image look right.
2. I can put many images on one canvas/document and show off different parts associated with the male body.
3. Montage, I can take different parts of the models body cut it out into squares or other shapes, and rotate or desaturate and make it unnatural.
4. Multi exposure.

Surrealism is an art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike scenes and ideas

i consider this as the movement that lead to absurdism ( the inspiration for my current project), it experimented with ideas and images that broke the norm and allowed artists to express un-conventual thoughts, values and ideas.

surrealism officially gained popularity in Paris in 1924 with the publication of the Manifesto of Surrealism by the poet and critic André Breton (1896–1966), Surrealism became an international intellectual and political movement.

Absurdism in itself is the pursuit of the absurd, which is an interesting concept because absurdness is regularly used word in reference to silliness, or obscurity.

Although It quickly became a form of protest it resonated as a way for women to create art that challenged the status quo and bring revolution for women across the world.

This was considered a challenge to traditional confirmative behaviour and expectations of females because of the underlying connotations in the art they produced was that it was silly or ‘absurd’. Below are some examples of this in the early feminist art movement.

This was a vital movement. It not only provoked thought and consideration among women across the world about their life styles and what was expected of them, it also inspired women to create art in a time when the art world was a primarily male dominated.

Claude Cahun was a French surrealist photographer, artist and sculptor. Born in 1849 to a Jewish family and died at 60 years old via execution for her protest art work in December 1954, heartbreakingly just before Jersey was freed from occupation and the war was ended.

Her art was revolutionary and convention-breaking in many ways but primarily in their work on identity and self recognition.

Claude Cahun, originally Lucy Schwob, changed there name in order to adopt the gender ambiguous name , Claude.

they did this in a battle with their attraction to women and conflictions about their identity, throughout their life they created challenging and thought provoking images that very very controversial and generally upsetting at the time.

Claude primarily took self portraits displaying the conflict of identity that they were enduring often either featuring two versions of themselves or contradicting themes (eg. typically masculine clothes or objects pared with heavy makeup and provocative shirts)

these ideas were considered outrageous at the time especially during the occupation of jersey in world war two, so outrageous their work was considered dangerous and threatening to the Nazis, this resulted in cahuns eventual arrest and execution.

Cahun was very ahead of there time and payed a very high price for it, as an artist there work is interesting and absurdist, representing the absurdness of her situation and the contradiction in their identity .

This photoshoot was another creative concept however after 59 photos it wasn’t working the way I wanted and I actually preferred the previous shoots results. However I did get some good photos as featured below.

While these are good results they aren’t what I wanted and I think the message would be stronger if I draw more inspiration from Sherman’s work. I did here in the sense I got the model to dress up and ‘not be herself’ but I think the message is over shadowed but the general shock of first glancing at the photo. I don’t think the over all look of the photo with the orange wall and window frames are quite distracting to compared a blank wall.

Mind map

I will use two different types of models I will use myself and I will use someone else, a friend perhaps. It is important to me that I am not just the main subject of the photos as everyone’s idea of femininity is different to others, it’s an ever changing definition.

Photoshoot One

Photoshoot Two