This is an artist I found out about during my painting seminar class in the spring semester that just passed. It's a part of the art21 series. I wish I knew about him earlier! I cannot find a video of him talking about what he does with film but I thought this video was a great introduction to him. He allows chance to play such a huge role in his work and I love it! I started to fool around with chance last semester in my painting class. Here is my painting final from the spring semester:
I had never done anything like this before. It's entirely chance based. I worked on this the longest I think that I've ever worked on a piece. I say this only because I usually know exactly what I want the image to be and I execute it as quickly as I can. It uses a twin bed sheet, the remainder of the sheet of canvas I used for the semester and two large heavy canvas sacks that I cut open to make them rectangles instead of squares. There's hardly any paint on it. It consists of mud, wax, melted charcoal and dirt from the floor. I wasn't looking for a specific image to make. We were given something like 3 weeks to finish it and I decided to work on it the entire time and then the week it was due figure out how to display it.
Arturo Herrera takes his film and puts it in a liquid: cold water with ice cubes, hot water, coffee. Depending on the temperature and nature of the drink it effects the emulsion on the film; allowing chance to play its role in the final image. This is something I found incredibly fascinating. I hadn't thought about destroying the film for an image before. I like things to be very precise and specific. But by experimenting in my painting class I have really learned to loosen up which is frigging great! There is a lot less pressure but at the same time I am able to satisfy my compulsive urge to be organized and precise by setting boundaries. For example, for my liquid experiment this summer I only used disposable cameras, and when I put the film in a liquid I determined the time to take it out. So having some control over a completely experimental/chanced project was just a really great feeling. Like I said in my first blog, I still need to learn how to develop color film, since all the film I used was color. I'm very anxious to see how it comes out :)
I also played around with over exposure using my digital camera. Usually I like to under expose in order to get a very black image. But this summer I decided to change it up and see what happens with a white image. Here's an example:
This is an image from the inside of my friend's car looking out the door at my boyfriend and his buddies. I'm quite pleased with the white images. I'm not 100% all about them, but they are slowly growing on me. I like how it hurts to look at but, like the black images, as a viewer I try to put together the little detail I am given to make a full picture; I'm trying hard to figure out just what I am looking at because I am given only some recognizable things (the car wheel, the door, some plaid). In an image that is obviously abstract I feel like the viewer tends to accept it and walk away, whereas an image that has something real in it yet is too black or too white too completely see the whole thing makes you want to see the whole thing in order to accept it as something before walking away.
I still don't understand how to end a blog yet but yea, that's all I want to say for now. See ya!
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