I have two ideas for my current brief. I want to either do more studio work, using dead insects and dead animals or try and get into a morgue and take photos of the dead, since this what I am very interested in and what I am basing my dissertation on.
Screenshots of the email I sent to see if I could go into the local mortuary, but they don't allow photographs being took in there.
Time management plan
14 weeks
week 1- Dissertation to write, do a shoot in studio, print image ready for tuesday and e-mail morgue and funeral homes
week 2- dissertation to hand in, hand in 1 print
week 3- shoot as much as possible (depends what I get back from funeral homes)
week 4- ' '
week 5-' '
week 6-' '
week 7-' '
week 8-' '
week 9-' '
week10-' ' select and edit all final images/ print
week 11-All shoots should be done by this point hopefully, last minuete shoots if needs be/print
week 12- print/sketchbook last bits if need be
week 13-
week 14- exhibition?
For my first hand in I am going to shoot macro shots of some of the insects I already have. After my talk with my tutor, she suggested to show the details of the animals I use rather than the whole thing to see what I come out with it, I like this idea, its ambigious and it will make people look at it and think about it, but I will do both to see which idea looks better.
Andres Serrano is a major influence on my work and on me. His work is very controversal but I can relate to wanting to photograph the things he photographs.
If I am able to get into a morgue, this is the sort of thing I am hoping to photograph. Although I want to photograph them in the morgue rather in a set up staging area like these.
What I like most about this series is the little he shows us of the person. He focuses on just the reasoning behind their death.
If I am able to get into a morgue and take pictures of people, this is what I want my series to look like. I would keep the idenity of the person secret and I would only use John Does. Seeing as I live in Blackpool there could be quite a lot of unclaimed people, but the morgue won't let me in, so I will have to see what the funeral homes say.
Since my lighting isn't the best I have looked online for ways to light for macro shots.
This is just one image I took for my first image that was for a deadline (tuesday 28th). I have chosen to use dead animals for this series because I had a e-mail back from Sue Fox who gave me information about getting in morgues and how difficult it is to get in one because of the scandals from Alder Hey Hospital.
I have used natural lighting for this but I want to take this into the studio and use professional lightng and I also want to get a macro lense because I want to capture the detail in the animals and not just the actual animal.
The main parts I want to focus on on the seahorse are the tail and the eyes because the tail is a main feature of the seahorse and the eyes have shrilveled up and they is something a lot of people won't have seen before.
After re-thinking this whole idea, which I did a lot of. I have changed it back to the ideaof documenting death. When I looked at word I've alreayd previously researched for my dissertation, I noticed a lot of the bodies have shrouds covering them and this is something very common in the prepreation for burial. This reminded me of the Shroud of Turin.
I did email Sue Fox who had a book called 'The Morgue' in which she had photographed bodies in the morgue, I asked her how she went about this and I did get a reply. She told me to try a different approach because taking photos of people in the morgue isn't allowed anymore but also because her and other photographers have done this and to maybe try doing the same idea but in a different way.
When I was thinking about what I could do to change my idea from what I was doing, the Shroud of Turin came to mind. I had used this in some research before and I found the marks left on it intriguing.
I have used this in my research before in college, which reminded me of some of the work I had previously done. I had buried fabric with paint and pigs trotters to see what they would do after being left to rot in the ground for a week. I had to wrap the finished pieces in bags but they were toxic to breathe in so I had to get rid of them for health and safety reasons. i don' t want to recreate this exact project again but I want to a varition on this.
This is not what I want to do for my finals. This procress is different from what I want to do. For this I put flower petals onto some fabric and hammered the petals while the fabric was folded. The colour from the petals then transferred onton the fabric and left an imprint. I liked this idea because it was something different from the other stuff I was doing but it is something different from the original idea of shooting in a morgue but it relates to that because it is something organic leaving its mark on something; staining it.
This is scanned in but I want to photograh the final outcome.
Klaus Pichler
http://beautifuldecay.com/2012/03/27/klaus-pichlers-food-decay-images-shed-light-on-global-food-waste/
The way the fruits have molded was what brought me to these. Although they are not what I am looking at doing, these are helpful in looking at the stages of mold, so I can identify what stage of mold I want to photograph.
This set is looks very commerical with the lighting and background. This set up is very different from what I am thinking about in my head. These use a black background and flash lighting to get the lighting evenly on both sides of the objects. I want to use tungsten because I feel it will give my work a warmer tone to it, to make the mold seem more warm and comfortable, whereas these are cold because they are white (lighting wise) and the background makes them look cold because they stand out.
I just really liked this because it shows the amount of waste humans make. A lot of this food hasn't even molded yet and it has been thrown away. In ways a lot of the stuff I will be using will be fit for consumption but I am using it because I want it to decay on the fabric, and using decays fruit and food on it won't grow the same as it would if it directly molded onto the fabric.
It reminds me of patterns, kinda symmertical, in the sense the colours are evenly spread out on both sides and it could easily be folded and look kinda the same if it was (thats how I see it in my head when I see these). It reminds me of William Morris in ways.
Looking at this makes me think I should try to make mine even (or as even as I can control it) symmertical by folding the fabric in half when I place the food on it. I am not sure how these would look but I imagine both sides would be different but the same in ways.
Heikki Leis
Looking at the stages of the mould in all the different images. The lighting in these are bit dark and cold for what I want for mine. The lighting does not convey the same feeling I want in mine, these make the mould to be something horrible and not nice, but the way the lighting makes part of it glizen(sp?) reminds me of icicles. I think these are just beautiful, they remind me of jewels, if these werent so bviously mold I could imagine a lot of people would look at these and see them as something else, which is what I think is trying to be done here.
The very bottom image reminds me of a picture I took myself of animal skulls, they are the same size and shape and in the same order. So when I look at those, thats all that I see. But I can see why I think this, the different stages of it obscures the size and shape of it making it look like a different one each time, which then reminds me of looking at the different animal skulls.
These look like very strange creatures (from another planet) or even strange insects.
The way the mould have grown on these fruits, makes me think I can make the mould grow on fabric.
I found this series when I was looking for inspirition to use taxidermy for this module.
This is another set that reminds me of Willam Morris. I found this when I was looking for another idea to do instead of the morgue. I was originally going to use taxidermy and see what I could do with that, but I wasn't feeling very inspired by that idea so I went in a different direction. I thought I would still include this because it was part of my main body of research, even though it hasn't been a very big part of my development for my new idea.
Not exactly linked to my idea, but I just liked the repition of the objects used to form patterns and then the small details, such as the dead rabbit. This is more for future research rather than this current idea.
The only thing I can take from this would be showing the beauty in death (or decay for me).
Willam Morris
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=william+morris&espv=210&es_sm=119&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=PEgDU_DkJ4aX7QbumYGgCw&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ
Although Willam Morris is a pattern designer rather than a photographer, I thought his work was very inspiring. Although I won't be producing shapes and patterns such as these, the repeitive nature of his work is what I am focusing on. I want to try and create something similar, in the sense of making something look as though it could be used as something decorative and something people would want to see in their everyday, but it being something they wouldn't think twice about looking at. I want to show the beauty in something vile.
When you look really close at these, you really see all the detail in them. Such as the rabbit one , if you just glance at it you don't really see them there, but when you stop and take the time to absorb the detail you can see them. I want to do this with mine. I want people to stop and stare at my work and take in all the little details.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rorschach_test
When I thought of what I would want my moldy fabrics to look like, the ink blots came to my mind. Although I know they won't come exactly like this because these are more controlled than what mine will be since mine will be forming on the fabric. The colours also won't be as vibrant and they actual utcome isn't manufactured like these. Mine will be a random outcome.
What I want to take from these is what people see in the mold. Like the inkblot tests, I want to see what different people see and maybe just note them down and see if I can find some meaning behind what they saw, but only if I get enough feedback will I do this or if I think there is potential for someone to see something in the mold, otherwise I will just boycut this idea, but save it for another idea in the future.
David Maisel
http://davidmaisel.com/works/picture_2009.asp?cat=lod_cad&tl=Library%20of%20Dust:%20Canister%20Details
From this set, I am going to take the composition and the framing. The main focus is in the centre of the photo and your eyes are drawn to that area first because that is where the most interesting part is. Although these are beautiful, I am not sure I want to be this close to the mold on mine, because I feel like a bit of cropping has been done in the lense, and I want the whole patch of mold to be in frame, these are just focusing on little, interesting details.
When I look at these, my brain automatically sees vaginas. The pattern of the rust on the tins draws my eyes in a way that makes me see this. The middle image reminds me of nipples. Even though these aren't meant to be sexual in anyway, it relates back to the inkblot tests, different people see different things. I think what causes me to see these is the colours and the how defined they are, they don't really mix together and each colour is dominat so they are all seperate causing lines.
The liquid from the strawberries have created an image similar to the inkblot tests, this is only the liquid so I ak excited to see how they actually turn out.
Some of the fruits and foods I used and the containers I used to keep them. Shows the progress of the decay since this is fresh fruit I am using. First stage.
This is a example of one of the ones I did that which I folded in half to create a symmeritcal image but as you can see, both ends are very different.
Tungsten lighting used.
put first mold contact here but it needs making
These are just some of the photos I have chosen to look at in more detail so I can see what I can improve on for my next shoot.These are all of my 10+ images (as this is my first shoot and some of my fabrics are still molding)
These are screen shots because I don't have photoshop or an editing software on my macbook, so the only way to be able to convert them was to screen shot.
These are all unedited.
This is slightly off centre and I have noticed this throughout all of the images I have looked at, they have been at an angle and it slightly irrates me. This was not the tripod bein misplaced but my placing of the fabric on the frame I was using, I need to think about positioning the fabric more central and equal on both sides.
I dont understand why this image ^ is really light...it doesn't look like that in the actual photo...
When I opened this image on my mac in finder the colours drastically changed, it became lighter, so I will have to see what i can do to fix it. Because it looks so much lighter than it actually is (maybe because I had to change it to a .tiff but that shouldnt matter right?) it looks a lot flatter than it should.
I was going to try and make the mold patch more central but because the mold had grew right at the edge of the right side, the edge of the fabric would have been in the photo, and I didn't want that becaue it wouldn't have matched the rest of the images and I need a running theme throughout, so the series look like it matches. Out of all the photos I took, this was the only one I thought resembled the ink blot tests, because some of them I have purposely places the food in a certain position or way to make it look like something obvious but this one (to me) looks like a penis. Because of this assumption I think this one has turned out really well.
Both images above and below this text was a symmertical one I did. Both are very different from the other one. One has more mold and an outline but on the other the food as stuck to it giving it a horrible texture to it. The above is a bit too light and I don't like how it is off center.
the line in this one is too dominat, it takes attention away from the mold. I need to fix this before i shoot and also adjust the lighting so it isn't as visable when it comes to reshooting them.
It reminds me of snakes and ladders when I look at the line in it. I think it is the shape of the line because it looks like its wiggling.
I also need to straighten this one when I re-shoot it.
Out of all the fabrics, this is my favourite one. I just love the colour contrast between the green and the orange. This wasn't meant to be an actual one because this was on the outside of the fabric and not the side i put the orange peel, but I loved it so much I had to use this side. I see that I need to fix the position of this because it is a bit slanted at the bottom but on my next shoot I will fix that. And the lighting as well,because I am unsure how this looks, on some it looks fine and it doesn't look so flat but I am not sure.
I am going to re-shoot to work on my lighting and getting these right. This is only my first shoot.
Second shoot. A little bit better but the lighting still needs some work on it;.
Slightly off center, which is annoying. I'll fix this when I shoot them again. Instead of using the 100mm macro lense I used the 50mm lense instead. The whole thing is very crisp and in focus. It brings out all the detailing in the mold but I don't know if I want them to be this way, I want the focus point to lead the eye around, rather than it all being the same depth of field. The lighting is still too dark and not flat enough, it is adding texture where texture isn't needed but i think this is partly due to the angle of the fabric because it isn't straight and is slightly more towards the left.
Best example of the flat lighting I used. (Tungsten) Bit too orange, but I can tone this down in photoshop later on. The mould is now starting to change colour as it can be seen from this and the others. It is going to a brown colour so the warm tone does need toning down a lot so the brown doesn't blend in with the background.
The mould looks a bit like mud on this one.
I was trying to get flat lighting when shooting these, some have become flatter but soe of the fabrics such as this have a lot of creases in them and I didn't notice this when shooting, only when I uploaded them. This has too much contrast in the creases, so I need to make sure I try my best to smooth them out but also to get the lighting flatter on these ones, so I may need to move the light at times to get this effect.
The photos I have made bigger to look at are greener than what they are on the macs at uni, so please ignore the green tint, they aren't that colour normally.
I do believe I have got the lighting correct on this shoot! Everything is flat, there are no creases to be seen (not dominately anyway).
The mould is now turning very brown and isn't vibrant like it was when I fist shot them, which is a shame, but I can always make more.
The lighting in these are much better than my previous shoots!
Theres not much I want to change about these, i think the lighting is right and what I wanted to achieve has been done, i would only change the muld because I want the vibrant colour rather than this dull brown/green.
I can easily make new ones if I need to.
I can take from this shoot the lighting and placement from these because I believe I got it spot on, so shooting again will be easier since I know what I am doing with the lighting.
I found Sarah Sudhoff when doing research for my book brief. Her work is similar to mine, she has done a similiar thing to what I am trying to create with my work. She has photographed some of the physical evidence that has been left behind when someone dies. What drawn me to these series of photographs was the way the blood had stained the mattress, how it was darker in certain parts of the pattern and how it highlights certain parts. Even though each of these are the same substance on the same objects, it isn't the object that makes each of these different, it's the different ways the blood has settled. Like mine because I used similar types of food and the same material for all of mine, but because of the placement of the stuff I have chosen, they are all very different. Like these, everyone died in a different way so the blood is different in them all, it shows the induivlaity of each person, which relates to the someones idenity.
If I was to change these slightly I think I would change what was seen in some of them. Some have a little bit of a hint as to what the original object looked like before it was stained, and I would have liked to of seen the contrast between the white and the red. Each colour has different connotations and the contrast between them could have given another meaning to what we see. The best example would be the third image because it is a contrast between the red and white, the way the red had seeped in just a corner of it and left some of the white, could indicate the blood has tainted it; something bad is trying to to take over something good.
http://www.cope-arnold.com/aether.html
Fig.1
Fig.2
Fig.3
Fig.4
Fig.5
Fig.6
A bit of a mix of reference material here. I found these relating to the pattern and colour stlying I want on my fabric pieces, although these are liquid I think, they are beautiful. I think they relate to what I am producing for this body of work but they give me ideas on the things I may want to do in the future (or for my portfolio). I have always wanted to mix liquids together but I don't have the time to do this, so I want to take things away from this and apply it to my current work.
The way the liquids have formed together make it look like it's marble. To get it like this, I think they have used flash, as it is very still with no movement. Any other light would cause blur if the liquid was still mixing together.
All of these remind me of the world map, like a sataliette photo of different countries. For example, in the photo above (fig.6) the white could be seen as being the countried and the different shades the different types of water surrounding them. In ways they look like their own little worlds.
http://beautifuldecay.com/2014/04/18/gross-yet-beautiful-artworks-made-mould-bacteria/
Antoine Bridier-Nahmias
http://magical-contamination.tumblr.com/
This artist I found quite late on if I'm honest but I just wanted to show the link. The mold on these look very much like the different stages of what mine have done. Each one reminds me of something different, some remind me of shells because of the lines they have create and another reminds me of a cresent moon. Mine don't have such great shape as this, they don't look much like anything but I don't really mind since I am not really getting into the whole inkblot idea anymore, since I didn't have much control over how symmertical they were.
Some of these remind me of dark clouds, wheather it is dark clouds from rain or a storm or in the case of the last one it reminds me of an atomic bomb, if you were to see it from the top rather than underneath it.
These are quite grogestue but they are also eye catching and pretty-ugly. The colours are vibrant considering they are mold and the colours make it look nice. The orange dots really stick out to me, even though there is very few of them but they seem to dominate that whole picture.
If I could change one thing about these photos would be the background they are photographed on, I would have used a plain white background so it looked clean in comparison to the mold growing in the dishes.
The paper cup challenge. We had to take a photo of a cup and we had 4 days i think to do it. we didn't need to have a proper camera we could use our phones, so that is what I did. I didn't know what to do, I had many ideas but none of which I could exicute in the said time frame. So when my friend came round, we came up with this idea since they had a small keladascope in their bag. Not exactly the most creative, but I think they are something a little different and more creative than what some people would have done.
It was really hard to choose which one I wanted to hand in, because i liked them all for different reasons.
Over the easter holiday's I did not have access to the still life studio, and I could not do any of this brief work at home because I needed certain lighting and the space and a macro lens. So I worked on some other pices of work and just looked at taking pictures of anything just to get some creative ideas for future work.
This multiple exposure was the first one I did (successfully) and the ones after (if I had thought the positioning properly) were very successful. I am doing a mini series on these instax mini's based on shapes in natural things and trying to create surreal scapes photographing various things (but not random). I will think about what I am snapping at because I want them to work together.
I just really liked the colourful lighting that had been reflected in my bath. This is just something I wanted to add for inspirtion on other photos I may produce while doing this module.
Not exactly linked to what I am doing but the final result of her work relates to the ink blot tests I have based some of my research on.
In some ways, this can relate to the idea of people leaving marks. The way she drops the eggs onto the canvas is her leaving a mark on something, not exactly in the same sense I am basing my work on, but I can see the link between them. It ties in with the inkblot tests I've already researched, even though I am not really doing this idea anymore I think the inkblots have stylised my work in some ways.
My mold has now turned black. I don't think this would be good to shoot because a) it is very toxic now and b) it's no where near as vibrant as it was when I first did them. They were slightly brown and I didn't like this, so I have made new ones now.
I will shoot my new ones both digitally and analouge. I want my final images to be on 5x4 film because this film is known for the grain and amazing image quailty no matter what size it is blown up to.
(it has been a week and there isn't much mold growing on the new ones. So I've had to put them in frot of the radiator to warm them so the mold will grow hoepfully by tuesday 29th april)
When I saw what my mold had done by turning black and not looking very much like it once did, it reminded me of Sam Taylor-Wood and her time lapse videos of decay.
Although, I wish I had of thought about this video before I took photos of my mould, because I would have liked to of made a time lapse of my mould forming and decaying but I didn't have a space I could leave the mould without it contaminating other things (or people) around it. Health and safety first.
Heather Barnett
http://www.heatherbarnett.co.uk/
A lot of her work is time lapses, so I included some of the videos shes made. Although her series on the petri dishes, the only image I could find was the one I have included (images of her work don't really come up).
Her ideas are interesting. The maze one I find to be very interesting. The way she shows the mould making its way around the maze, showing it is a living organic matter bewilders me. We don't associate traits such as this with mould. It is very much like a mouse or rat maze, which gives it the connotations of mould being animalistic but not human. It is very uneasy to look at because it is growing at rapid speeds (because of the time lapse) so it looks like it is coming to get the viewer. It reminds me of an old b-movie horror films like The Blob or aliens.
The petri dishes look like other worlds or galaxies. The mould has a life of its own and it is it's own world. In ways it's conveying an unknown world to us, we don't know for sure how mould reacts; whether it is a thinking organism. It reflects our fears and uncertainities about beings on another planet (aliens).
From this I am going to take the petri dish style (much like Antoine Bridier-Nahmias) because I think these are more fitting to my idea than what I am already doing (plus I feel like this gives another platform to my work).
Crop circles into final images to focus on a part of it rather than the whole thing. Looks like a petri dish (links to my artist research), which also links in with the mould being grown in a controlled surface area.
Daniele Del Nero
http://www.danieledelnero.com/p/after-effects.html
When I first thought of my new idea, I was toying around on with something similar to this but using doll parts.
These remind me of the paper cup challenge I did, the last image really. It looks very similiar to what I did with the kaleidoscope.The mirrors work well with these because they make the towns look bigger than they are, which gives it an illusion, from the outside it is one size but when you look inside it has grown in the short amont of time it has taken to move your head to see in there. To me it is a metaphor for mould always changing and always growing and how things can change in the blinj of an eye. This gives me ideas for this to thing after this brief is over so I can keep producing work.
Again this is another artists work that complies to the idea of mould being its only world. The way it is presented to people (the installitions) make it very personal and intimate, like we are the big person (God maybe?) looking into a world that's been created. In many ways it reflects religion, a higher being (viewer) looking down (from heaven) onto a smaller world (the mould towns). Very much like my own work, I want to have my work big, so from afar it looks like something it isn't and then people have to come up close and personal to it to see what it actually is and to see all the little details in the mould.
This is my final shoot I did. I used both my old and new mold because the new lot had not really molded and much as I wanted it to. But I liked how the food on it had started to mold and just turned into mush, it was something different than what I had done and both of them mixed well with each other. The black one had molded even more and left 'white fur' on it. It is a nice transcedence between the two; like the various stages in the decay of a human body (although I am sure the body doesn't exactly look like this when it is decomposing).
A lot of the new mould looked a lot like stains, which I do like.
I am going to put the final finished and polsihed images in at the very end because I want to edit them and crop them before I place them in this.
Part of work in progress I am doing. This is a collage of porn adverts and the Manson Family mugshots.
What I want my final prints to look like. A2 in size but cut down into a square. I just need to make sure I make the circles and sqaure as close as possible.
This is part of a self portrait series I did on my instax film. I wanted to take this porject to another level and create something 'beautiful' with the photos I had. I had some resin from another time and I thought it would be a great experiement to use it to create something. I used resin, a jar, and some dried rose petals.
I placed the flowers at the top because of current fashion trends at the moment. Flower crowns are seen as something beautiful and something very popular with people I know. The flowers I used were also dead/wiltered and I thought it worked better than fresh flower petals, mostly because the fresh ones don't represent me as a person but the wiltered ones do.
I may try another one of these but with gelatin to see how that one works, since the resin was very expensive and i got very little.
Part of the same body of work as my other collage (manson family mug shots) I am thinking of doing this with other bad people (serial killers, world leaders). This one is a paraody, in no way, shape or form is this me supporting Hitler or the Nazi's. I enjoy reading about history, and some of my favourite parts to read about is the Holocaust. i find it intriguing. But since Hitler is widely known I thought using his face in this way would get people's attention, and they would see the lighter, funny side of this.
When I scanned in all the parts of this, the woman's body had no elbows or arms really but when I edited it together, it reminded me of the Venus statue. I felt this was fitting because the Venus is something that is seen as being beautiful and a great piece of art and something that is widely recongised. It felt fitting that these two things should be merged together.
For these I used cut outs from a nazi book and a page 3 model.
Part of the same series as the Hitler and Manson Family collages but not with the evil people I said. This is a link between modern society and Hitlers ideas. These are some of the posters and drawings of the Arian Race that Hitler wanted to dominat. This is my idea oh the world if this was the case. Seeing people who are good people (nun and a priest) being the child of an evil agender.
I needed to add more to my series. I used the Romanov family and Rasputin. I very much adore the story of this and as a child my favourite book was the diary of Anastaia. I found it fitting to have a collage of this. Rasputin being evil and tie between him and the family (and their demise). The cartoon film that was released in the 90's was a main inspirtion for this, which why is why I put his head on Anastasia's body. I had many ideas to toy around with for this, I was going to put his face on everyone but it didn't look right. Then I was going to leave the Queen's head as her own but I feel the one I have made works best. The way his head sits on her body gives it a sexual feel. When I look at it, i feel as though he is seducing the camera, giving us his bedroom eyes.
Paul McCarthy
http://www.hauserwirth.com/artists/images-clips/?artist_id=20&p=1
Every time I made a collage, I always thought about Paul McCarthy's work. i always (in my head) compared my collages to his work. Although his is very sexual (unlike mine) I still have some link between his work and mine. He uses well known characters or people in his work (Snow White for example) and they are very sexual. Mine are more soft-core porn and his are hard-core.
In the future I would like to produce more work like this. I want to make work that is different from the other things other artists produce. I want to do this because this is the art I enjoy, not because I want to get a reaction from an audience. I enjoy making vulgar, strange, vile work because that is my personailty.
These are from a body of work of surreal landscapes i am trying to do. For these I used my Diana camera with the instant back. On this you can do multiple exposures, and when I first tried this, I liked the outcome. I thought I would try to do this and make 'surreal landscapes' by taking various pictures of differentthings around me to create a new world.
Some of these are more successful than others and I do need to work on them a little more to define them but I am quite enjoying doing this, it broke this module up quite well.
I have felt very creative during this module.
Some of the final selection for my portfolio.
Test strip to see the sharpness of this for my 60x60 frame for the exhibition.
I do think I need to do a bigger one.
I also want to do an A4 frame with one of my collages, but I am not sure which one I want to use. I think the Hitler one?
Artist Statement
Millie McGuirk
“All things are subject to decay and when fate summons, monarchs must obey.” John Dryden
This current body of work is to show the beauty in something that other people find repulsive. It is also to show the fragile nature of humans, and the marks they leave behind when they die.
The development of this series of work has gone in a completely different direction than what it was anticipated to go in. Although it still follows the same basic theme of death and the consumption of an organic matter (the body), it has been done in a way that is not ‘in your face’ like what other artists have done before.
The organic matter used to create the decay is not in anyway similar to human flesh, mostly due to health and safety reasons and not wanting to expose others to the toxins fruit and food was the best idea. Much like humans, it decays and rots in a similar manner so it could be linked to human decay in this way.
The Shroud of Turin was the first reasoning behind staining the fabric with mould as the staining from the flesh of ‘Jesus’ was rousing. The way Jesus’ imprint had been left on the fabric was memorising, but it still presented to us he was a real person and with the idea, that Jesus was once alive. The symmetrical way the stains have been formed was something that was evident, which looked very much like an inkblot test. As the series went on the mould was of course the main focal point rather than the stains left by the food.
This series is suppose to copy the styling, colour and tone of a beauty shot for a make-up campaign, as it is trying to make something beautiful from something repulsive. Tungsten lighting was used to create arm tones because of the connotations warm tones have; happy, safety, comfort is some of the connotations associated with this tone.
This series is aimed at galleries and publications in the fine art industry that are willing to showcase graduate work. Thus in doing this, this and other pieces of work will be seen and produced.
Final images. The bigger one is the main one I want to show at the exhibiton because out of all of them, this one is sharp and I think it is the most interesting (and vulgar) one to look at. I need to run a few test strips and edit it so it is as good as it can be but I can do this in the weeks running up to the exhibition.
Rationale
Millie McGuirk
This project has gone from one thing to another, but the final outcome is different from expected, and I am pleasantly surprised with it.
Originally I wanted to follow in the footsteps of Andres Serrano and Sue Fox with their work on morgues and post-mortems, but when speaking to Sue Fox (and from finding out myself that I couldn’t gain access to local morgues) I changed my idea. I was going to work with taxidermy and photograph that in a different style but I did not feel like this idea was what I really wanted to do. I spent a few days looking at various artists and photography sites to see what I could do instead. I saw a lot of mould and decay in the works I was looking at. I looked back on some of my old work, which gave me my final idea.
In keeping with the theme of the human body decaying, I wanted to find an organic matter that would react in the same way human flesh would. I couldn’t use animals (like pigs) to decay because of health and safety, the rot from the pig releases toxins that are harmful to people. The fruit would also rot a lot quicker, and it would save me time.
My lighting wasn’t very good at the start, but I managed to fix it and get my lighting correct. I only used tungsten light for these because of the warm, orange tone it gives off. I wanted the mould to look like they were beauty shots, to show the beauty in them even though mould repulses people. I wanted macro shots of them because I wanted to focus on the pattern and the colours they formed, I didn’t want the fabric to be a main factor. The texture of the fabric was something I had to work with. At first the texture seemed to be a dominant feature but once I got my lighting correct, the texture wasn’t a problem anymore.
my only problem with my final images, is the sharpness. I had to use a 100mm Macro lens, and when it came to focusing it meant that some of the mould was soft, so when I blow them up there won't be as good quality, but that is just what happens when you get in close with things.
The final images were going to be full bleed, showing the entire mould but during a final crit and (some research) the idea of cropping them into circles was my final outcome. The circles resemble petri dishes, so it was fitting to have my mould in circles.
If I had more time, I would have liked to have made more mould and photographed the original ones I did to show the changes in them (or even made a time lapse video). I would have also tried it with a different camera, like a 5x4 because the detail on it would have been great but I didn’t have time to do 10 on this. I am overall happy with the outcome.
From all the research I have done and the work I have created, I want to work more with stains (both human and from foods). I like the way they react with different surfaces and how they remain on given surfaces. I am going to experiment more with this idea.
