JR is a street artist known as "French Banksy". He is a TED Prize winner and Oscar nominated filmmaker and has received critical acclaim for his global art projects that bring together diverse groups of participants and bring very important social issues into focus. He has worked on projects focusing on women's rights to immigration, to gun control. JR spotlights communities across the world by photographing individual members of those communities and then pasting their images (sometimes illegally) on a monumental scale usually reserved for advertisements featuring models, celebrities, and politicians. These installations are deliberately placed in public spaces near or within the communities with whom JR has partnered, allowing the individuals portrayed to remain at the centre of the discussions prompted by the artist's work.
JR Chronicles - Saachi gallery exhibition
Jr chronicles at the Saachi gallery was the largest solo museum exhibition to date of the internationally recognised French artist JR, featuring some of his most iconic projects from the past fifteen years. The Chronicles traced JR's career from his early documentation of graffiti artists as a teenager in Paris to his large-scale architectural interventions in cities worldwide and recent digitally collaged murals that create collective portraits of diverse communities. Some of the key projects the Chronicle included were The Secret of the Great Pyramid (2019), JR's large-scale collaborative piece created in occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Louvre Pyramid, Tehachapi (2019) which follows JR's experiences with inmates of a maximum-security prison in California and Women are Heroes (2010 to present day) an international project with took/takes place from Brazilian Favelas to Westminster highlighting women pivotal role in society.
JR - Portraits of a Generation
In 2005 two young men died of electrocution whilst fleeing the police in the suburbs of Paris. This sparked major rioting for three weeks because young men in the area were/are continually persecuted by police and tensions were already high. JR saw the portrayal of the rioters in the media as villains and thugs and noticed an image in the media of a car on fire and behind it a pasting he had done more than a year ago of his friends. He realised that they too were being shown as thugs so he went into Le Bosque (an area where many riots took place) and took portraits of his friends there playing the caricatures of themselves. He then pasted these all over posh suburbs of Paris to show that these men weren't monsters they were simply normal guys.
Response
My aim is to create JR influenced work in my own area using an image of one of my classmates.I intend to place a portrait of him in alley's and on buildings making it seem as if he is watching over the scene.
WWW: I correctly used the software in order to print of the image and was then able to place the photograph within a decent composition. EBI: I was able to show people in the areas reaction to the image.
Gordin Magnin- The Geometric Portrait
Gordon Magnin is an LA based artist who uses fashion images and turns them into a unique collage of "altered found images" with his use of geometric patterns. His background consists of a Masters degree from the Southern California Institute of Architecture, a bachelors of science in structural engineering from the University of Nevada, meaning that his skill is entirely self taught and his experience is fewer than other artist who have manipulated images for a longer length of time to get to this level of skill. He describes his work as "precise, intricate, geometric and destruction". His alteration of single images using precise geometric cuts and operations completely re structure the form of the original photos, and due to the majority of his photographs being portraits, the repositioning of geometric shapes cause deceptions at first sight as the eye is not used to features of the face being in strange places, which is what makes his work so unique and individual. His use of black and white colouring accentuates the features of the face even further due to the quality and use of shadow in his photographs. His aim of work is to break down the expectations of perfect looking models and to challenge the industry's perception of beauty (he says "he tends to make the beautiful ugly") who said that his work was too extreme for them. He uses similar digital manipulation of images with exactly the same concept as when models would be altered to look unrealistically fake in campaigns and advertisements etc but I believe exaggerates that to mock the industry.
Response
My aim is to create Gordin Magnin style responses creating distorted interesting faces by using photoshop. I aim to create alien images that still retain some humanity.
WWW: My images are clearly in a Gordon Magnin style with strange arrangements. EBI: I was able to blur some parts of the photo making it seem more joined together.
David Samuel Stern
David Samuel Stern is a Brooklyn-based photographer whose work centres on examining photography asa physical interaction, in process and in result. He creates unique artworks by weaving two separate photos of the same model. “David Samuel Stern aims to build a bridge between direct portraits and abstraction. This way of abstracting the images does not only offer his subjects a way to hide within themselves, but also turns digital photography into physical objects by adding geometric texture. Being poets, choreographers, artists or programmers, all of the models featured in ‘Woven Portraits’ are creative types in their own field.”
Response
My aim is to use a paper to distort a portrait to create a Samuel Stern influenced work.
WWW: I was able to crossover two of the same image effectively using paper in order to show a strange sense of chaos. EBI: I had used even more layers in order to give the piece more texture.
Alma Haser
Cosmic surgery is imagined as a medical procedure that people can choose in the not so distant future for aesthetic enhancement, mood alteration, and to thwart increasingly pervasive methods of surveillance. Combining photography with collage and origami, Haser's playfully odd portraits consider the link between identity and image in a culture of visual bombardment. She suggests a fundamental shift in the way we understand ourselves and the world around us, picturing the possibility of a trans-humanist future. "Experimentation has shaped my identity as an artist. I’m always thinking about different sculptural approaches to photography and how I can build layers into the work. I never know exactly how I’m going to produce the work until I’ve spent hours experimenting. Most of the time it’s a happy accident that shapes the final piece."
Response
My aim is to fold up one image of a person and then place it over a flat image of the same person to give a strange effect.
WWW: The pieces have good texture and composition as the viewer can really see the strange way part of the face suddenly leaps out. EBI: I combined the images mixing the two faces.
Kehinde Wiley
Kehinde Wiley is an American artist best known for his portraits of African Americans in traditional old portrait poses with patterns that have a specific meaning to the model behind the scene.Most famously, in 2017, he was commissioned to paint Barack Obama, becoming the first Black artist to paint an official portrait of a president of the United States.
Response
My aim is to match a portrait of my own to a 16th century work and then create a patterned effect behind.
WWW: I think I captured the likeness of the portraits well in my images. EBI: I could somehow edit the images to give the effect of being painted like a canvas.
Thomas Kellner
Thomas Kellner is a German fine-art photographer best known for his work using film to distort famous landmarks. His work imitates the wandering look of the eye, showing us segments of the total which come together as one image. Therefore his photographs do not necessarily deconstruct architecture but instead reconstruct our view of it. His work offers an alternative view of famous landmarks, attempting to question how we look at them. Kellner uses the traditional process of film photography to create montages. Using just one roll of film, Kellner often takes images of the same landmarks or buildings of significance from different angles to later re-arrange them on a contact sheet and create a unique composition.
Response
My aim is to fragment buildings on photoshop to create interesting collages like Thomas Kellner.
WWW: I used layering on photoshop well to fragment the images giving them a sense of chaos. EBI: I was able somehow change the way the viewer sees the images through the chaos.
Patrick Cornillet
Patrick Cornillet is a French photographer/artist whose focus is on realism.In his series focusing on the fragmentation of architecture, parts of buildings are taken out of their environment and reconstituted in the form of objects on a white background. The infinite nuances of concrete, make us aware of the wealth of the material and of the remains left by the humans and by Time passing by. Even if the architectures seem austere, spaces seeming uninhabited, dehumanised, Cornillet creates a particular poetry and a mesmerising mysticism.
Response
My aim is to create similarly stark works using photoshop to exclude the subject of the image, however I wish to use a brighter tone in the images so as to further contrast the stark surrounding.
WWW: I effectively gave the images a real sense of seclusion. EBI: I could include more subjects in the images emphasising the loneliness of each one.
Anastasia Savinova
Anastasia savinova is a Russian artist born in 1988 based in Sweden. In her work she breaks down fragments of her environment and then combines them to create a new fictitious environment. In this way she almost creates her own world with her photos.
Response
My aim is to create similar works by stacking buildings on photoshop.
WWW: I was able to use photoshop to match different buildings together. EBI: the buildings could be joined more fluidly
Three Strands
Duane Michals
Duane Michals is one of the great photographic innovators of the 20th century, best known for his minimalist photographs used to create short and very surreal stories. He was born in 1932 in Pennsylvania and attended the university of Denver for a bachelors degree in art. Then after serving in the military he continued to pursue his interest in the arts at the Parsons School of Design in New York. In 1958 he traveled to the soviet where he took a series of portraits using a borrowed camera. On his way back he worked as a freelancer for many fashion magazines. Throughout his time as an artist his approached continually changed; his early interests lead him to make several documentation series, however in the late 1960s he lost interest in straight documentation and moved on to staged scenes that addressed philosophical ideas predominantly focused on death, gender and sexuality.
Response
For my responses my aim is to create my own strange stories in the style of Duane Michals.I want to have a story whilst maintaining an interesting photo for every section of it.
Dead End Journey
For this work I tried to show the disappointment that we feel when our curiosity comes to nothing. The subject finds a new path but it leads him nowhere.
Urban Artemis
For this work I used the influence of the Greek god of nature (Artemis) to show the mind of the environmentally conscious person in the modern day.
Ascension
For this development I attempted to show the soul moving on from the body.Leaving the first stage of its journey.
WWW: I used Duane Michals' style well to create my own ambiguous works. EBI: I was able to show the wider settings in each image.
Carl Morris and John Rostron
In 2006 an internet sensation began in which vinyls were placed over figures so as to seem that they were part of the record.In 2008 Carl Morris and John Rostron published a book using this idea to create amusing and captivating works. It originated in a small club in south Wales as a simple joke and now the men are internationally famous for their work. The artists define Sleeveface as "one or more persons obscuring or augmenting any part of their body or bodies with record sleeves causing an illusion.
Response
For this response I tried to create my own "Sleeveface" works in an interesting fashion.
WWW: I used the records well to connected the fragment of the face on the vinyl with a body. EBI: I was able to match the clothes for every image.
THREE STRANDS
Cliff Briggie - Ice Painting
Cliff Briggie is a Connecticut based artist that studied photography at the university of Connecticut school of fine art from 1972-74 , however he then began a career in clinical surgery.In 2006 he returned to photography where he began to produce 'Ice Paintings'. He mixes vibrant inks and paints with water and ice to create incredibly beautiful and temporary canvases. In this way he uses fragments of colour, ice and time to create eye catching and transient works.
Response
Development 1
For this development like Cliff Briggie I used ice to create abstract shapes but I attempted to make my work have more of a texture.
Development two
For this development I used ink and dye to create more fluid images more similar to Briggie's work.
Development Three
For this development I put ink directly into water to try to create allusive swirling images of the dye which betters captures the essence of Cliff Briggie's work.
Development Four
Finally for this development I returned to using ice, passing it through larger blocks.This proved the most effective way to produce Cliff Briggie-style images.As the ink passes through it swirls within the ice forming interesting shapes and patterns.
Final Pieces
I chose these images because in each the colour swirling compliment each other very nicely. They are the images that most remind me of Cliff Briggie's work.The way the dye passes through the ice falls in a very natural way giving each a sense of calm. The first image contains many different sparks of colour making it very striking to the viewer. The second despite being less colourful, the colours that are present compliment each other very nicely making it particularly easy on the eye. The third image best shows the benefits of passing the ink through ice. The way the red varies in shade and the natural running of the dye through the cracks in the ice make the image a model example of ice painting.