Sofia Ajram

I feel Ajram's work directly correlates to the ideas that I had discussed with in my individual meeting this past Tuesday. Her work deals a lot with the same ideas of creating an alternate reality as well as using similar techniques in using light. I feel her first image is very much like the kind of image I want to create as the last image of the series  in which the light takes over the subject.

Biography:

Ajaram is a young photographer from montreal who just recently graduated from Dawson College in Montreal, with a degree in graphic design. Her work deals mostly with depicting these alternate worlds she creates. She became well known in photography after beginning to shoot for magazines in 2007.


Quotes:


"A great deal of things inspire my work. History, for the most part, sums it up rather well. What has happened, within and without, universally, and what has yet to happen but will be documented by time. That being said, I have never experienced this history firsthand, so the visual aesthetic of my work is due to my lucid dreams and vivid nightmares. I feel as though I need to document them in some way that others may experience what I have seen." - Sofia Ajram

"Women influence my photos. Women are sexy. Women are seductive, powerful from the core in a wild way that’s virtually inexplicable. I like to document that sexuality.” - Sofia Ajram

website

Interview

Fantastical

I find my work has a lot to do with this particular play due to its setting and this idea of being cut off from "reality" for a night.  I have been looking into the different visual adaptations such as sets and movies of this film to see how each director portrays this fantasy land. I find my work in a way has some dramatic story that goes with what lured my subject into the forest, as with the characters in this play. I also like the idea of adding in a supernatural element but in a fun, not sinister way. These forest fairies, who had in the past been portrayed as evil creatures, are portrayed as cheerful creatures who create unharmful mayhem for amusement. I don't know that I necessarily in my work therefore, want to give too much a dark overtone. I want there to be some playfulness with my images yet at the same time this dulled feeling of sinisterness.


"Shakespeare must have derived his forest spirits from oral folk traditions." (The Pathology Guy)


"So far as I know, Shakespeare is the first writer to portray the faerie folk as tiny or cute."(The Pathology Guy)




"Enjoying "A Midsummer Night's Dream" by William Shakespeare." The Pathology Guy. Web. 17 Nov. 2010. <http://www.pathguy.com/mnd.htm>.
This website is extremely informative and easy to use for readers who are somewhat familiar with the story. It gives a brief synopsis of the entire play as well as analyzes the characters. This site also gives some fun facts about the play, such as that the portrayal of the fairies in this play had some influence over Walt Disney's depiction of fairies in his stories. Also the author gives some facts about what elements seem to have inspired Shakespeare to when writing this play, such as folk lore.

Alex Singh Response

I loved that instead of speaking about his work, he showed us a performance of it.  the use of the projectors not only displayed his work but also set up a simple form of stage lighting. I was somewhat confused when he first began because I didn't understand what all these short tangents had to do with one another. After a while I realized his performance was all about associations no matter how far of a stretch the associations were.  Even in his non performance art pieces he still draws on this idea of interconnectedness. He even wrote one story in which you never find out the resolutions because each chapter went off into some side story from the original one. I feel his work can be described as clever, circular (as in talking in circles), and connected.  Although the form in which he presents his work is different from project to project, his work still seems to embody all these things.

I found his most compelling work to be the creation of his own written language using graphic block formats. The concept of actually creating you own language in order to tell a story is true committal to one's work. I wonder though if his audience has as much trouble looking at this kind of work as I know I would due to the over-complicatedness. His work in which he did an installation in an actual house creating this space of a meth lab that suddenly turned into a grand museum was an interesting idea and artwork I would love to experience. His work always has something to do with a performance whether it is through an experience such as in the house, or if it is one of his association lectures.

VMFA submission

Sally Mann Lecture Response

I absolutely loved the Sally Mann lecture. It was refreshing to know that such a respected and famous artists is able to remain so humble when talking about herself as an artist. She was not only insightful but also hilarious when talking about her work, why she does certain series, and how she deals with other's reactions to her work.

So many things she said during the lecture stood out to me, not just when talking about her work, but also when giving advice to the audience about how to work as an artist. One of the first things she said was never to put a finished work up until you are 1/3 of the way through a new project so that you are not constantly stopping your work due to criticism. Also she said that she tends to work on multiple projects at one time so that she can deal better with forcing herself to create new work. She says despite all the negative comments she has received, she keeps working due to how stubborn she is.

When asked about how she developed her style she replied "it's really kind of laziness" and that you "have to open yourself up to serendipity." Though she says this, one can easily tell by looking at her work that serendipity is not purely the case. Her work can be described as boundary breaking, emotional, and dark. Her most recent work "Proud Flesh" I found most compelling after she told the audience though this work deals mostly with extreme intimacy, it also is a way for her to deal with aging and how disturbing growing old is to her.

My first question was somewhat answered. An audience member asked her what her reaction was to the child pornography accusations, in which she responded by simply saying "I had no idea those pictures would push so many buttons." She said that unlike many artists you see in the news today, she did not set out to gain recognition through shock value.

My second question was answered as well, since some of the images that were shown during the lecture did have color in them. These images did not seem as successful though as her black and what images. I felt they lacked the soft, flowing qualities that her other images have.

Eugenio Recuenco

Recuenco autobiography:

"Eugenio Recuenco is a Spanish photographer who is a pain in the ass because he always insists on doing whatever he wants. He works for quite a number of clients both in the advertising and editorial fields all over the World who are also a pain in the ass, because they always want to do whatever they want. Out of these fights between hardheads it has been possible to rescue the images for this Web site, some better, some worse, but made with lots of enthusiasm and with the support of a great team who refer to themselves as "The Eye of Frosker". The latter is an entity that has came to the earth to bother some and also to amuse some others. If you are one of the latter, stop fooling around and get in." 

I find I am extremely drawn to Recuenco's work due to his images having such a strong base in fairy tales, mythology, and other forms of storytelling. Many of his images in his portfolio fit into a series by depicting an actual story as you go along. He is not only an artists but is an author as well, who has a vast array of stories he has depicted. I want my work to have a loose progressing story line like his work has. I want it to be clear that I am telling a story, of otherworldliness, something inspired by imagination, fairy tales, and dreams.

Quotes:

"I use many things as inspiration, one of them are the classical paintings. They are dramatic, histrionic, and all the volumes they get with the use of the lighting. A light that is so far of the modern sophistications of the photographic studios. If you analyze carefully that paintings, the light is so simply, but perfect at the same time."- Eugenio Recuenco

"I feel darkness more attractive than night. For darkness I understand craziness not detectable at first sight." - Eugenio Recuenco

Website

Interview

Sung Yeoul Lee Artist Lecture Response- 11.12.10

I found the Sung Yeoul Lee artist lecture to be extremely intriguing because I was able to hear about art-making from the perspective of someone in a different field. To him concept seemed to be equal with his craft. He starts out with a general concept yet his final outcome is more important in the physical aspect. All his work deals with a central theme of people's relationships and how they interact or do not interact. His work could be described as social, wearable, and illusions. His latest work especially embodies all these descriptions. I found this work most compelling because he creates a simple form of technology that becomes a prominent part of the wearable sculpture.

While working on his undergraduate, he began using metal to create cubed objects that could transform into large objects, which directly correlated to the skyline of Seol, which he grew up around.  He became very well known during and after his college experience for his work with creating eyeglasses that were useful yet not something that would be worn by the public. One of his first eyeglasses was actually inspired by Morpheus from The Matrix. Soon after he decided to come to the USA to work on his graduate degree. Through this drastic move his work became extremely influence by people's relationships when creating his work because he said he found it hard to create relationships with Americans.

Both of my initial questions were answered. The first about what kind of relationship he is critiquing was addressed when he was describing why he started creating his work in Graduate school. The second question had to do with whether or not he would want to use clothing when creating his work. I feel he would be willing to use some non traditional material in order to create a form of clothing in his future work. After seeing his lecture, I feel my only question left has to do if his glasses he created as an undergraduate, had anything to do with how people interact as well, or if it was more craft and practicality oriented.

Sally Mann Lecture 11.13.10

1. What has your reaction been to recent child pornography cases against artists doing series similar to your "Immediate Family" series?

2. Would you consider using color images for some of your work, or is the lack of color an important element in your series?

Sung Yeoul Lee Artist Lecture- 11.12.10

1. You work seems to deal a lot with how people interact with one another. Is this more of a critique of our lack of interaction or just a critique of the ways in which we interact with one another?

2. Your pieces mostly take the form of wearable art such as jewelry and eye glasses. Have you considered using clothing as a form as well?

Robert & Shanna

The surrealism and overall nature of the work this team produces, gives me a somewhat new idea in how to guide my series. They achieve the total effect so well because they create their environments rather than search for it. This approach could work well with my concept since it does have to do with one creating their own world. The use of soft focus as well as the use of color or absence of certain ones, makes me wonder if my images could work in a monotone format or if the color is what makes the overall mood so successful.

Biography:

"Much has been written about Robert & Shana ParkeHarrison, the husband and wife team whose photographic tableaus took the art world by storm more than six years ago. Creating a genre unique within the photo world, the ParkeHarrisons construct fantasies in the guise of environmental performances for their Everyman – a man dressed in a black suit and starched white shirt – who interacts with the earths landscape. Tapping into their surreal imagination, the artists combine elaborate sets (which can take months to construct) and an impeccable sense of wit and irony, to address issues about the earth and mankind's responsibility to heal the damage he has done to its landscape." (http://www.edelmangallery.com)

Website
Gallery
Interview

Grad School App #2

Rochester Institute of Technology

I find I am very drawn to this school due to the location as well as its prestige as a fine art school. The student as well as faculty work uses photography as a gateway medium into creating artwork. Much of the work starts out or ends as a photograph but has so many other elements that add to the process to create the final image. This school is very different goal wise from SCAD due to its fine art approach with more emphasis on concept. Like SCAD though, it still focuses on using the education process to further the careers of its students by providing classes that teach about how to presnt oneself as a professional photographer through building up a portfolio as well as finding career opportunities.

Professor Work: Myra Greene

"Myra Greene was born in New York City. She received her BFA from Washington University in St. Louis and her MFA in photography from the University of New Mexico.  She enjoys exploring photographic processes to engage issues about the body, memory, the absorption of culture and the ever shifting identity of African-Americans. Her work has been exhibited in galleries and museums nationally including Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco, California; Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Atlanta, Georgia and Sculpture Center in New York.  Myra is the recipient of the Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Photography in 2009 and has completed residencies at Light Work in Syracuse New York and the Center for Photography at Woodstock." (Myragreene.com)

Student Work:

James Bellucci

"I grew up in the rural town of Jefferson, Maryland. In 2002, I received a B.F.A. in Photography from Shepherd University, Shepherdstown, West Virginia in spring 2002. In spring 2003, I joined the Blue Elephant, a collaborative art space while working as an Executive Assistant at the Delaplaine Visual Art Education Center in Frederick, MD.
In June 2009, I received a M.F.A. in Imaging Arts and Science from the Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY. Currently, I work as an Assistant Registrar in the Office of Collection Management at George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film and teach photography as an adjunct professor at Monroe Community College." - James Bellucci

Grad School App #1

Savannah College of Art and Design

I had been previously drawn to this school while in high school and searching for undergraduate schools to attend. What draws me most to this school is that thier photography program seems to be much more technique based rather than conceptually based. I feel if I am going to invest so much money into furthering my educations, I should pick a school that will give me better tools to work in the advertising world which is where the most money lies. While I do feel that VCU has given me a good base, the images that are shown in the student gallery for both graduate and undergraduate work at SCAD, look more like the work I need to be producing if I want to work commercially. For example, in one of the photos on the website, it shows students working with studio lighting to photograph a Porsche. Not only are these students learning how to photograph an object that seems rather difficult, but they are also getting to work with a prestigious company while learning to do this.

Professor's work:
Liz Darlington

"Liz Darlington is a photographer from New Zealand. Her specialty is photographic digital media, and her background is in the television and new media industry. She has exhibited throughout the United States and is represented by the Krause Gallery in Atlanta. She had her first solo show in her home country in 2006." (SCAD)

Student Work:

Cheng-Hua Wu is an Taiwanese photographer who graduated with a M.A from SCAD in 2010. Wu's work deals with burnt fashion photography advertisements as well as long exposures that deal with artificial light in landscapes.

Direction

I feel recently I have come to a point where I feel I have hit a road block. I don't know how to move forward, I feel I am only sidestepping in my new images. I like the story idea but I don't want to push the fairy tale idea too much. I feel I have already exhausted this concept in prior work. Yet somehow my images always go back to some kind of story line. I feel this somewhat has something to do with my interest in fantasy and mystery novels, in which I become so immersed in the story line I sometimes forget the characters do not actually exist. I feel since my series have such a narrative based quality to them, I have a form of writers block. I'm not sure where to take my story. I feel it has so many options while at the same time so few. I have been looking to writer's block tips online to try to get myself out of this hole. Mostly it suggested taking my mind temporarily out of my story line and hoping the break will give me a new perspective.

"It's not that there aren't plenty of topics to write about, the problem is we often feel we need to say something new. The reality is that not much is genuinely new. We all stand on the shoulders of giants."


"Try researching and writing about a completely different topic area. You might not publish the piece, but by immersing yourself in new areas and concepts, you might gain new insights on your chosen field."


"How To Overcome Writers Block | SEO Book.com." SEO Book.com ~ SEO Training Made Easy. Web. 04 Nov. 2010. <http://www.seobook.com/how-overcome-writers-block>.
This article was extremely helpful in giving me ideas on how to deal with writer's block. It gives seven different options that one can use to try to get past the block. Most of them deal with not thinking about the subjects at all or trying out a different subject in order to gain a new perspective. One of the points even suggested excersie and another suggests "creatively borrowing" ideas in oder to point oneself in the right direction.

Zoe Beloff Lecture Response

"Hysteria Like cinema only existed in the moment it happens."

"Interested in the embodiment of the unconscious."

Zoe Beloff's lecture took me by surprise due to her tricking the audience the entire time. I had found myself  growing somewhat disinterested half way through the lecture, because I felt I was being given more of a history lecture rather than a lecture about this artist's work. After she answered Drew's question, admitting that the man she was telling us about did not exists, I felt delightfully tricked. Suddenly I felt she had made her audience a part of her artwork. Her medium was not just 2D photographs, drawings, and videos, but it was also performance art. I found this work was the most compelling due to this.

I would define her work as recreations, trickery, and story-like. Beloff created entire lives for these people she come across such as the mental patients, and especially Albert, who she had claimed created these dreams journals. Her work is also very much focused on recreating the sounds and photographs that she found of these women in hysteric fits.

I found I was most interested in her fascinations with the records found of mental patients. I didn't realize that she was this interested in such an interesting subject that she would actually create musicals about them. I love that her work was very much based on her research into the records of these people.

My questions were not clearly answered this time since she focused really on only two of her projects. The second was not answered at all (1. Your work seems to deal a lot with the idea of the supernatural and psychic. Have you ever experimented with using photography to create ghostlike images in a stop motion effect?) but, the second one was somewhat answered by her answer to one of the questions at the end about how she decides upon what medium to use for her work.

My main questions that remain after the lecture deal with me still trying to figure out what she created under the name of Albert and what was truly found drawings and photographs. I still am somewhat unclear about if she had really found all those Coney Island photos or if she had recreated as she did with the hysteric women.

Zoe Beloff Questions

1. Your work seems to deal a lot with the idea of the supernatural and psychic. Have you ever experimented with using photography to create ghostlike images in a stop motion effect?

2. While some of your work addresses the relationship between technology and imaginations, you still choose to use film for your work. Have you considered using HD video for your work?

Gregory Crewdson

I find I am extremely drawn to the cinematic elements of Gregory Crewdson's photographs, as well as the eeriness that the viewer finds when looking at them. He uses light not only as an aesthetic quality but also as another presence in the photograph. This is the same kind of feel I am going for. Using the light as a presence, as another character reacting to the figure. I want to try to move my work indoors again since I have many images I am happy with from the outdoors. These images give me insight into how to make drama out of the mundane feel of the suburban interiors. 


Biography:


"Gregory Crewdson was born in Brooklyn, New York, on September 26, 1962. His first experience of photography, at the age of ten, was a Diane Arbus retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. At sixteen, he played in a band called the Speedies, whose first single was titled "Let Me Take Your Foto." In 1985, he received a B.A. from the State University of New York at Purchase, where he studied photography with Jan Groover and Laurie Simmons. He graduated with an M.F.A. in photography from Yale University in 1988. For his thesis project, he took photographic portraits of residents of the area around Lee, Massachusetts, where his family had a cabin." (Metroartwork.com)


Quotes:


"I think the process, in my mind, is as important as the picture itself."- Gregory Crewdson


"I think that, in a sense, there's something about photography in general that we could associate with memory, or the past, or childhood."-Gregory Crewdson

Website

Interview

Gallery

"Gregory Crewdson Biography and Artwork - MetroArtWork." MetroArtWork - MetroArtWork. Web. 01 Nov. 2010. <http://metroartwork.com/gregory-crewdson-biography-artwork-m-61.html>.