10/31/09 Jacquelyn Nelson- Jay Gould Photography

Jay Gould is one of the professors that spoke to us about his work at the SPE Conference. His series of work called The Participatory Universe really inspired me. I especially love the print Fissure Erosion. During the lecture he said that this location to take a picture was pretty cliche, but he made it very different with his measurements and maps. I can’t stop thinking about the idea of putting photographs on graph paper and documenting them in an intellectual scientific way. Jay seems very knowledgeable in science, and we just learned in art history that Leonardo da Vinci said in order to be a better artist you must have an understanding of the human anatomy, mathematics, and science. I think this idea has worked very well for Jay. It’s very obvious that he puts a lot of time and thought into his work. Also he had personal stories that went along with each picture and why he took it. I got the feeling when he was presenting his work and talking about some of his photographs and manipulation to them that this is his way of trying to figure out and better understand the world. In some of his other photographs it seemed like he was trying to create stories that he would love to see or be real. I thought the photo he had on display was printed well. I love how most of the pictures in this series had drawings that continue the photograph, and after seeing his work I am really starting to enjoy color photography.

Brittany Kennedy 10/29/09

I visited the Blue Star Art Galleries and came across the Joan Grona gallery where Ryan Takaba's "Mums on the Horizon" series was on display. The stoneware and the way it has been treated and glazed is exquisite in detail. These works reminded me of a student in my printmaking class who has been working on sculptures made out of wood that have the same intimate feel as the stoneware created by Takaba. I was very impressed and drawn into the work as a viewer to the intricate detail and intimate cracks glazed. The color palette added to the intimacy as the artist used soft pastel like colors that really adhered to the success of the work. The space of this work seemed so broad around the viewer as a result of the way they are displayed on the podium all around the room. This allows the viewer to be submerged in the works space while inviting the viewer to engage closely with the work. The relationship established between work and viewer become as intimate as the work itself due to the subtle invitation. This piece is successful in many of the formal elements of art. It contains space, balance, visual aesthetics that cause the piece to work strongly, even if it was seen as separate pieces.

Brittany Kennedy 10/28/09

I was instructed by Professor Rowe to look at Robert Heinecken's work and it is ghastly. I appealed to these photos aesthetically and was drawn in by the fashion aspect of the images. Then I continue to examine the image and find a very intriguing artistic quality. I began to realize the opaque quality of the image overlapped with another image. These images have a very sexual appease mixed with a content of darkness or sensuality in a glamourous way. I did research on the artist and realized that this was what he was projecting. He says that he focuses on the use of sex in mass media not on the "spectrum" from fashion to pornography however as a "continuum". His statement though still fashion inspired was more of a commentary on how high fashion passes off sexual pornography appeal, poses, and ideals. This was even more interesting to me considering my passion for fashion. When breaking it down though high fashion is not pornography it is interesting as a model how I find myself doing very sensual, seductive poses. Never truly crossing the boundaries into pornography but possibly scraping the surfaces of that similar sensuality. It is appealing that Heinecken within his work is able to actually transfer his idea and concept to the viewer.

Apryl Corbin Ralph Eugene Meatyard 10.27.09

In the spirit of Halloween!!
Ralph Eugene Meatyard is renowned for his images of children and adults wearing this cheap dollar store Halloween masks. His work has an eye for the setting and the pose, because of Meatyard’s ability to construct startling black and white contrasts from the paper he uses. This paper makes his images look like apparitions.
Meatyard dispensed with the murky backgrounds. These images relied entirely on the transgressive impact of his masked figures nonchalantly inhabiting the daylight world like regular folk, as if they belonged. This is what you are seeing in Occasion for Diriment.
I was just looking at some of Meatyard's work and remembered how on the first semester of photography I fell in love with his images, regardless of how creepy they were. They are just so beautiful-- they way they were printed and constructed. These images are something you could shoot any day, but he put this peculiar twist to them to give them his signature.

Brittany Kennedy aka amber kay 10/27/09

I went to visit the Gallery at UTSA on the second floor near the music area. I was intrigued by the lithograph by Heinrich Zille called "Schnapdestille". I am unsure if this is the artists' name but I believe it is. The child like qualities of the line drew me in. The content of the lithograph drew me in even more. I identified with the content in which there was text. There was a translation of the text because the original is in German. It was a poem regarding what goes on in a bar. How you drink to forget your problems and get drunk to numb the pain. This brought me back to a time in my life when I worked in a bar. I drank to forget, to numb, to release. This was the emotional effect the piece actually had on me. I have not ever had the emotional experience from a work that I could actually identify with. On the flip side the formal elements of the work are apt. The line quality in which is expressed in child like forms transforms from thick to thin which allows the firgures and shapes to form shadows and character. It allows the formation of the work to have depth as a result of the treatment of the lines. I did a little research on this artist because I had never heard of him and I was surprised that he was considered more of an illustrator and photographer. Various techniques of printmaking impress me when I become aware of how they connect to some of the aspects of photography. The element of surprise!

Barbara Kruger

Brittany Kennedy 10/25/09

Barbara Kruger's "I Shop Therefore I am" photograph is an image that I was very impressed with when I came across her work in Contemporary Art. I immediately identified with her concept and was actually inspired by her work that influenced my concept of exposing consumerism. There is something about fashion which in my opinion is a art form in itself versus consumerism and the role of the buyer that I am intrigued by. For many people more than anything women shopping is an art form. Find the best sales, get the best discounts, shop in one day, budget shop for Christmas by getting gifts a year in advance. The whole dynamic of the concept has so many variables that one such as myself feels entrapped and entranced in the whole idea of Fashion versus consumerism. Fashion is glamorous to the outsiders eye and consumerism is the opposite. Barbara Kruger addresses the topic of shopping in this photograph in a very simple way. From a conceptional view the work is broad yet specific and then the formality of the photograph is border line minimalist. The shapes are simple and yet the color is specific. Red is a color of warning or danger yet why is shopping dangerous? The white is symbolic of innocence and enhances the contrast from the red background "but if shopping is dangerous and we should be warned then why do people do it so innocently" I believe her choice in color for this photograph is very appropriate and makes it a successful work of art.

Artist as Performer: Tim Roda - Risa Morales

The Houston Center for Photography is currently running a show called "Artist as Performer." One of the artists exhibited there is Tim Roda, whose series of large-scale images is along one of the first walls of the gallery. Each image is composed of the artist and his son and is telling a different story. Many of the images are seemingly chaotic, with many different objects visible within the frame, implying the "moment" of the image. Part of what makes the images so intriguing is that they are all carefully constructed. While they look like it is just a man and his child playing in some sort of garage, Roda actually constructs each of the sets for the photographs before the image is ever actually taken. One of the inital images of the series actually shows the space before he (and his son) creatively take hold of it.

The images are whimsical and skillfully capture that element of being a child and allowing simple, crude objects to become unlimited vehicles of imagination and fantasy. A number of different photographers have attempted to capture this idea, this feeling, and many have employed the likeness of a child in their images to attempt to elicit it. Roda includes himself in every image, not as an impartial observer, or as an adult authority figure, but as a willing participant and implicit co-conspirator of his son's. This inclusion of the adult artist allows the fantasy world that we see captured to no longer exist for only children, but to be a place that all can share in. The artist also intentionally leaves his edges rough or "unrefined," which, in my opinion only adds to the illusory and imaginary effect of the world he attempts to create within the edges of the frame. As with most large-format images, there is a large amount of visual information contained within the edges of each frame, providing the viewer with a photo that you need more than just a few seconds to glance over before you really understand the nuances of everything in the images.

Photographing children (and animals) can sometimes lead to images that are very cliche and I am impressed with Roda's ability to steer clear of that and explore the creative and fantastical. The image above is not the image that is used as part of the advertisement for this series, but it is one of my favorites. It is reminiscent of plays, with the quasi-Greco-Roman background, wrought iron fence, and mismatched "costume" on both Roda and his son. Both are standing with an air of intentionally posed drama. The nearly supressed grin on his son's face and the over-the-top body languge of the artist shows that they both understand that they are being rather ridiculous, but with the attitude that this is really rather unimportant, as they are obviously enjoying themselves.