William Wegman

William Wegman

            William Wegman is a photographer known for his images of Weimaraner dogs.  He has created images as well as short videos starring these famous dogs.  Wegman became so famous through these dogs that he has appeared on several television shows, such as The Tonight Show and Sesame Street.  In many of these photos and videos, the dog’s head appears to be on a human’s body.  Wegman achieves this by setting up a stool for his dog to sit on, and then covers up a human model with clothing.  The hidden person then uses their hands to make gestures and move objects.  In the videos, voice is added to create even more of a humanlike effect.  The end result is a convincing display of a dog with a human body.  Other videos and photography from Willam Wegman include scenes of his dogs doing natural things, such as licking up milk from a bowl.

            I like William Wegman’s work because I remember it from my childhood.  I also like how he is able to use his dogs so consistently throughout all of his photos.  The dogs look extremely similar even though he has had several different ones over the years.  I am inspired by the whimsical feeling that comes from looking at his photography and videos.  Also, I am intrigued by how all ages can enjoy his artwork.  Children as well as adults enjoy viewing his dogs, which inspires me to create something that can be applied to all ages too.  Another thing that I find interesting is the color palate of his work.  I find his photographs containing the dogs to be muted, to match the color of the fur of the dogs.  It reminds me of a slightly antiquated style. 

Matthew Barney

Matthew Barney

            Matthew Barney is a unique artist who works with drawing, sculpture, photography, and film.  He has a strange yet interesting style in which he incorporates many ideas.  One of his series is known as Drawing Restraint.  In these drawings, the body is physically restrained throughout the duration of making a drawing.  Later drawings in the series employ different types of restraint, such as Drawing Restraint 19, where graphite is attached to the bottom of a skateboard, and then the drawing is created as the skateboarder maneuvers the board.  The Cremaster Cycle series is a combination of scultpture, performance, and video art.  The Cremaster series is based upon the idea of creation, and male and female reproductive organs.

            Last semester I was introduced to Matthew Barney’s work.  While I did not completely understand his Cremaster Cycle, I connected more with the Drawing Restraint series.  I was inspired by the idea of physical limitation while drawing.  I also thought more about attaching drawing implements to moving objects, to create chance drawings.  As for Barney’s Cremaster series, I enjoyed his sculptures and he had interesting use of costuming.  Matthew Barney’s art is largely performance based, which is something that many artists fail to address.  I also learned from him that working within a series is beneficial.  It gives the artist time to truly explore a theme and develop ideas, rather than working on one piece of art and then not revisiting it again.  I think that working in a theme is a great way to improve skills and concept. 

Annie Leibovitz

Annie Leibovitz

 

            Annie Leibovitz is a famous photographer with a lot of experience.  She has worked for magazines, major companies, and many famous people throughout her career.  Leibovitz is known for her unique lighting and the bold use of color within her photographs.  One of my favorite series of hers is the ones commissioned by The Walt Disney Company.  In this series, famous Disney scenes were re-created with celebrities assuming the roles of the characters.  Leibovitz creates these familiar scenes, and makes them realistic and believable.  She states that she also tries to retain the personalities of the celebrities she is working with as well.  The devotion Leibovitz gives to her work is also admirable. 

            It was interesting to become more familiar with Annie Leibovitz’s work during this research.  I recognized many of her pieces, but never connected her name to those photos until now.  I am inspired by her lighting choices, and I am visually attracted to the bold colors she uses.  My photography is similar in that it has bold contrasts and colors.  I also really enjoyed looking at her Disney series.  I chose to look at Leibovitz’s Disney series because of the connection she can make with audiences because of it.  Anyone who has grown up with these Disney stories will have a personal and emotional connection with these photos.  These scenes are familiar, yet completely new.  I think universally known subject matter has a greater chance of being successful with an audience. 

Jerry Uelsmann

Jerry Uelsmann

                 Jerry Uelsmann is an American photographer.  From a young age, he began exploring photography, and found lots of potential within the developing process.  Uelsmann takes digital negatives, and combines them during development while in the darkroom to create images that would be impossible to take with a camera.  While creating these surrealistic images, Jerry Uelsmann masks off the pieces of the negatives that he wishes to use, and then enlarges them.  Often times, he will reuse pieces of images in different works.  Uelsmann shares his imagination with his audience through the unique combinations of images he creates. 

            I was inspired to research Jerry Uelsmann because I have worked with photo negatives in the past, and I know how stressful and difficult the developing process to me.  Since the negatives cannot be exposed to light, he must do all of his masking and combining in almost total darkness.  It is amazing to me that these images can come out looking this clean.  I would like to try similar projects.  However, I would start with digital photo combinations instead of darkroom combinations.  I also like Jerry Uelsmann’s way of sharing his imagination with the world, and that a photograph does not have to look exactly like the subject it was taken from.  Another thing about his artwork that I enjoy is that it is black and white.  Since color photography is so common, the contrast between black and white photography really stands out for me.

Tony Orrico

Tony Orrico

 

            Although I was not able to attend the workshop at CNU with Tony Orrico, I still find his work fascinating and I regret missing that amazing opportunity.  Tony Orrico creates his works of art based upon human proportion and symmetry.   Using quite large sheets of paper, Orrico uses his body and graphite to create extensive drawings.  The process he goes through is very intriguing.  For example, he will use the wingspan of his arms as the basis for size, and then begin making short, straight lines with his arms extended.  As he slowly rotates, these straight lines visually form an almost perfect circle.  Once a circle is complete, he will use calculated movements to move a certain distance away and create a new circle.  The process is very time-consuming, and also requires a lot of energy.  Not only is Tony Orrico creating visual art, but he also is a performance artist.

            I was inspired by the unique and unusual approach Tony Orrico takes when creating art.  One important thing I learned from him is the idea of performance being an integral part of the art-making process.  A lot of his art is created in the presence of a live audience, or on film.  If an audience is going to be present during the creation of a piece of work, it becomes a performance as well.  Another idea I like is that of human proportion.  Human bodies are all extremely different, and if several people were to follow Orrico’s calculated process exactly, they would still end up with vastly different artworks.  I am inspired by the variance in the human body as well as the mathematics that Orrico addresses in his art.  Also, human endurance is a big portion of Orrico’s artwork.  I can connect with this on a personal level.  While I do not have the type of endurance that Tony Orrico possesses, I do face challenges with endurance while creating art due to a problem with my tendons.  Connecting with Orrico on that level has made me come to appreciate what he does even more.

The Starn Twins

Mike and Doug Starn

 

            I first learned about the Starn twins last semester, and I was curious about their work.   They work in a variety of mediums, such as photography, architecture, and sculpture.  Their artworks are often large-scale projects.  One of their most famous projects was an instillation called Big Bambú, which was a compilation of 3200 bamboo poles that Mike and Doug Starn lashed together.  Over the course of six months, visitors to the sculpture were invited to climb the sides of the bamboo and walk among its intricate pathways.  Another revolutionary feature of this project was that the sculpture was treated as a living body, and its physical shape was continually changing.  The Starn twins have an impressive body of other work, including large-scale photographs.

            I find the Starn twins to be refreshing.  I am motivated by the new ideas they have brought to the art world.  I especially like the idea of their Big Bambú project.  Instillation pieces have always held a certain interest with me because of the interaction between viewer and artwork, but the Start twins take it one step further.  Not only are the viewers interacting with the art, they are encouraged to get close and touch it as well.  I think that the bodily interaction with Big Bambú is important because it lets the audience connect on a deeper level with the art.  Another idea that I gained from this piece of art is the idea of an ever-changing artwork.  Many times when a piece is finished, it remains stagnant.  However, I will now revisit past artworks because Mike and Doug Starn have taught me that art is a living organism, and is subject to change.  I also like the idea that something that is constantly changing can only be preserved by memory.

Maggie Taylor

Maggie Taylor

I am very much interested in Maggie Taylor’s work.  Taylor takes photos of everyday objects and scenes, and then uses Photoshop to blend the photos together to create fantasy images.  I was first introduced to her style in high school, and I have admired it ever since.  Her work has a very fairytale-esque style that I enjoy.  She creates an incredible amount of depth with her scanogram-type style.  I know that she works with hundreds of layers per image, but they blend flawlessly together.   My two favorite series of hers are her This and That series and her Almost Alice series.  I think the most interesting thing about her work to me personally is the picture book quality of it.   I consistently get that feeling of childhood and wonder when I see her surreal images.  I also find her subject matter interesting.  I like the way she presents everyday objects and people in unique ways.  Her work reminds me of optical illusion books.   When you look at one of her pieces, you see the immediate image before you, but when you look at it for a longer period of time, you can spot the smaller different things that compose the picture such as a shell that works as a dress, or a tiny shape in the background.  Many of her pictures are also an intellectual challenge for me, because logically I know that there are photos within the image, but I hesitate to call the final product a photo.  It has a slightly more painterly and ethereal quality than a regular photograph does.  Maggie Taylor makes very convincing images, but intellectually I still know that they are impossible.  Many Photoshop artists use Photoshop to create very realistic, but untrue, images.  The way Maggie Taylor uses Photoshop she is not trying to trick the viewer, instead she is inviting the viewer to think about images in a different way.    Her work seems to emphasize childlike qualities and playfulness.  When I see people appearing in her artworks, I do not think of them as models or regular people posing for a photo.  Instead, I think of them as characters, and I can almost tell what their personality would be like.  The surrealness of the images is lively and easier to understand than many other surreal artists’ works.  Even though many of the characters within these pictures appear quite serious and posed, the emotion I get from looking at them is quite the opposite.  A different way I respond to her images is in a bodily manner.  Since her pictures appear three-dimensional, I can feel myself leaning to peek around a character to see what is behind them.  I enjoy Maggie Taylor’s work and I hope to use its inspiration to develop my own projects. 

Louise Bourgeios

Louise Bourgeois

           

Louise Bourgeois, most widely recognized for her sculptures of spiders, is possibly my favorite artist.  Her art reflects the struggles and pain of her difficult childhood.  Many of her pieces are very feminine, both in shape and subject matter.  She likes to depict feminism as a form of power.  Other pieces are very personal, and are a reflection of her experiences and thoughts.  Bourgeois’ art is often complex, especially her instillation pieces, which have many things to look at.  The objects in her work do not always make sense to the viewer, but every piece is important and emotional for Louise Bourgeois.  

            This artist is one of my very favorites.  I became interested in Louise Bourgeois when I was fortunate enough to see some of her work on display at the Hirshorn in DC.  Ever since, I have been captivated by her work, and I frequently seek out her art for inspiration.  Seeing her art in person gave me a greater appreciation for the amount of detail and intricacy that she put into it.  She inspires me because of the level of emotion that goes into her pieces.  It is not an easy task to put oneself out there for the world to see, but she does it successfully.  What is amazing to me is that she was able to take negative experiences and use them to create wonderful sculpture.  I hope to learn to be as productive with my experiences as she was.  Another aspect of her art that I enjoy is her use of found objects.  Something I struggle with is deciding how to use objects I find within a work to make them seem like they belong with the piece.  I hope to study her artworks and learn how found objects can be successfully incorporated into an artwork.

David Hockney

 

David Hockney

 

 

            David Hockney can be categorized as a Pop Artist from Britain.  He has worked in a variety of mediums, but the medium I personally enjoy the most from him are his composite polaroids.  Hockney will take polaroid photos of an object or person, and then use the resulting polaroid pictures to create a piece of art.  Each picture is taken of only a small portion of the subject.  The photos are then pieced together like a puzzle to create the larger image.  The larger image is always a distorted version of the true object.  For example, while taking pictures of the guitar, camera angles, lighting, zoom, and many other factors are constantly changing.   Rather than correct these changing features, Hockney allows them to vary.  The final product is always recognizable, but it has a distinct style that Hockney is known for.

            Having done several photo composites myself, I wanted to learn more about David Hockney’s process.  I like that he uses tangible polaroid prints, rather than digital editing programs to piece together his work.  There is something different and special about tangible photos that digital ones can never reproduce.  I also appreciate that Hockney allows the angles and zoom to change between each picture.  It is a very accurate way to depict a moment in time.  Also, I am inspired by the white space around each photo in the composite photos.  It really defines for me that even though all of the photos work together as a whole, each piece is individually important.  The white border surrounding each photo allows me to study each one individually, but does not distract from the final larger piece.  Now that I am more familiar with his work and process, I hope to use what I learned in future photography projects, as well as in other media.

Andy Goldsworthy

Andy Goldsworthy

Andy Goldsworthy is a sculptor and photographer from Britain.  He is famous for sculptures he painstakingly makes out of nature, and then photographs them.  In Andy Goldsworthy’s process, he finds an interesting space in nature.  He then chooses one aspect of the area, such as stones, leaves, sticks, or even ice, to create a sculpture out of.  Goldsworthy builds these amazing sculptures with his bare hands, using no bonding agents.  This is impressive, because the majority of his works rely exclusively on balance to hold them together.  After the completion of his projects, Andy Goldsworthy takes a photo to preserve that moment in time, and then leaves the sculpture in its natural habitat and allows nature to run its course.  

Goldsworthy is one of my favorite artists.  I find his work fascinating, and I love looking through his portfolio.  I chose to research him because I watched a documentary about him in high school, which was how I was introduced to his work, and gained interest in his art.  It is very inspiring to me that he spends so much time building these intricate sculptures, and then is able to leave them behind to be destroyed by the natural environment.  I also admire the amount of motor control Goldsworthy has.  I am influenced by the amount of patience it must take to balance the stones and sticks in those amazing patterns.  Also, I admire that amount of thought that goes into each piece.  Not only does he spend time focusing on the artwork itself, he also plays close attention to temperature, or time of day.  For example, one of his egg sculptures made of balanced stones is near the seashore, and depending upon the time of day the tide covers parts of the object.