Work in progress images:
- Top image – Practice piece – Goache on top of 18 x 24" photograph mounted to foam board
- Bottom image – Early stages of piece #1, same media
It may seem like cheating to use what should technically be defined as mixed-media for a series whose ambitions should adress the ontology of a single media, but the aim is to use this approach to begin a discussion of ways to subvert "choice" in the language associated with a single media. Overlaying paint deconstructs the photographic composition and thereby discards original intentions. Paint works to rearrange and reassess meaning towards my first choice in theme, "Historical mythology in the Southeastern United States".
The photograph is from a parade held at the University of Memphis. This group was comprised of Art History students studying the visual arts of the African diaspora. The only photographic information I plan to retail are the two male and female figures central to the altered composition. Drawings will be incorporated similar to their application in the top image, as well as collaged elements will be used to construct a narrative of mythologized blackness and the role the Other plays in the written and unwritten histories of the Deep South.
It is definitely not against the assignment to use mixed media, but it does take out photography as well as wet media for the next two works.
ReplyDeleteThe images are great. I'm really a big fan of the first image. I hate to constantly relate everything to Albert Oehlen... but it's sexy. For Real Real. Do that again and I'm retiring from the game to be your agent.
I would clarify "Overlaying paint deconstructs the photographic composition and thereby discards ((with...)the photograph's) original intention." Also, did you take the photo or was it appropriated? If you took it, then the original intention wouldn't have been defined, or at the very least I think it would be hard to corrupt your own authorship.
Looking Good Sir
Do you have a copy of the original photo for your first piece? From your description I imagine Bourgeois college students celebrating black culture, so I'm interested to know what the paint adds or takes away from that.
I took the photos. Claiming ownership of them feels weird though since it was for the museum and they are documentation of projects by other people who all worked much harder than I did. But yes, I operated the camera so BOOM.
ReplyDeleteI suppose ownership is relevant here, since we're talking about (white) bourgeois college students interpreting (claiming some degree of ownership of) black culture. Considering what you're doing, I feel like the intervention of paint into the predetermined/established photo compositions is perhaps the only appropriate way to to interject my voice into a discussion of a history/mythology I can claim no true...ownership of. Or something.
Y/N?
sweet. so i might say, deconstructs/disembowels/recpacks the the parade rather than saying photo. maybe.
ReplyDeleteoperating the camera is BOOM.
and Yes
ownership is relevant here, that's a good point I didn't think of. To reinforce that, I might think about making the paint into an imagery of ownership somehow. Maybe a slave auction block is too literal... but your smarter than I am, so you can think of a better image.
All of this black/white ownership history mythology is starting to make me think of Basquiat. It'd be cool to see if you could get his atmosphere without using text... which is impossible for Basquiat