After a little holiday hiatus, my Curated Persona series for UGallery is back! I happen to have a lot in common with this month’s persona.. which is why Mr. Forager keeps threatening to move us to Alaska ( which I might be secretly OK with! ). Check out my Curated Persona: Your Snow Bunny Sister on UGallery’s blog here!
Image via the UGallery website.
I used to have two cats ( who now live with Mr. Forager’s mom ). One of said cats, Simon, used to occasionally turn his back on me and just sit very still, and at those times, there was a sense of sadness that always seemed permeate the scene. But then he would suddenly start chasing the sunlight or stretch out for a long nap. London photographer Elisa Noguera Lopez creates a similar sense of isolated moments in her series, Perhaps Finally Alone.
In this series, the artist places domesticated animals against a simple decorative background atop a plinth-like stool. Capturing her subjects in ambiguous, seemingly-headless poses creates a sense of lonely disquiet to each scene. Their backs to us, the subjects are disengaged, leaving us longing for acknowledgement.
While the scenes may feel lonely at first, the longer I study them, the more of an anticipatory feeling I get.. the cat is watching a lizard on the floor below, ready to pounce at any second.. the woman has just flipped her head upside down and will whip it back up Rita Hayworth-style.
What do you think, Artsies? Do you find these headless bodies charming or disturbing? Let me know in the comments! To see more of Elisa Noguera Lopez’s work, please visit her website.
All images are via the artist’s website. Artist found via It’s Nice That.
I’ve finally joined the world of Instagram, which definitely has me taking more photos than I normally would with just my camera. Which is leading me to think more carefully about what I choose to photograph and how I choose to frame the composition. So needless to say, I’ve got photography on the brain! In my Artist Watch today on Escape Into Life, I’m featuring a photographer much more accomplished than I. Check out the work of Brian Taylor here!
I have had the work of Dutch artist Ruud van Empel pinned to my Pinterest board for months now. Imagine my excitement when we arrived in San Diego back in October and I saw who was coming to the Museum of Photographic Arts at Balboa Park! Since then, I’ve had the postcard for his show, Strange Beauty, hanging on our fridge, just waiting to see this compelling work up close.
*I snapped this pic before I saw the sign for no photography. Shhh.. don’t tell on me!
The artist’s first solo show in an American museum, Strange Beauty showcases over 40 of van Empel’s digitally created works. I hate to call them digitally enhanced photographs because they are so very much more than that. Ruud van Empel carefully constructs each piece, meticulously layering staged photographs, digital imagery, and collage.
The results are stunningly haunting, complex imagery. With a background in theater arts and graphic graphic design, van Empel sets a beautifully enticing stage, one in we aren’t sure whether his characters should feel right at home or terribly out of place.
As you look closely at each image, you aren’t sure where the actual photograph and the manipulation or collage begins.. in many we would be surprised to know which elements were not present all along.
Strange Beauty runs through February 3, 2013 at the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego. If you’re anywhere near the area, I highly recommend a visit! You can also see more of Ruud van Empel’s work on his website.
Top image by Artsy Forager. All other images are via the artist’s website.
New Year’s Eve is a time for self-reflection, right? I mean, between the glasses of champagne, that is. Which makes the work of photographer Akihiko Miyoshi perfect for today’s Artist Watch on Escape Into Life. In his work, the photographer seems to be looking into his own lens, distorted by the forms standing between. I find them fascinating and hope you will, too! Check ’em out here!
Lusciously layered, elegantly styled, richly colored photographs resembling classical floral still lifes? Yes, please! Have a peek at the sensual work of Dutch artist Margriet Smulders, featured today in my Artist Watch on Escape Into Life. Escape the rush of this Christmas Eve by gazing at these lovelies found here!
Perhaps it is my current state of semi-homelessness and this somewhat vagabond life we’ve chosen. Or perhaps it’s the feeling of taking home with me wherever I go. Whatever the cause, I was immediately enchanted by French photographer Laurent Chehere’s Flying Houses series.
To each house, there is a connection, whether one that seems to be an intact tether or strings that have been broken, there is a sense of both freedom and apprehension.
A life of freedom is a gift, yet it comes with a price. Sometimes costly to our psyche, an untethered life can also lead to joyous discoveries and adventures no mortgage could replace.
To see more from this series and of Laurent Chehere’s work, please visit his website. If you happen to be lucky enough to be in Paris this month, you can see his work at Galerie Paris-Beijing in the Flying Houses show up until December 22nd!
Images via the website of the artist’s representing Paris gallery, Galerie Paris-Beijing. Artist found via Free People.
Growing up in the 70’s in a working class family, much of the time we used what we had and lots of imagination in our daily play. My brother & I would regularly create “cars” out of cardboard boxes and I distinctly remember creating an entire make-believe floor plan out of fallen leaves. The work of London based photographer Noemie Goudal reminds me of how easily our imaginations are transported as children.
Goudal’s work recalls the magic of blanket forts and tin can telephones. Taking us back to a time when just a shape or a line sparks our senses to conduct us into a new fantasy world filled with possibility.
The artist uses simple props and imagery to create imaginative installations that seem to capture portals into a completely different world, a world that seems to leak out, blending the imagined with reality in the same magical way we did as children.
To see more of Noemie Goudal’s work, please visit her website. How did your imagination shape your own childhood play?
Since the glory days of the Polaroid and the advent of the digital age, photography in many ways has become a bit of an “everyman’s medium”. We all pick up our pocket digital cameras and iPhones when a scene inspires us. Artist photographers like Jose Betancourt seek to bridge the gap between historical processes and modern sensibility.
In this latest series, a collaboration with artist ( and ex-wife of Robert Rauschenberg ) Susan Weil, the two artists come together using historic and experimental photo processes such as cyanotypes, photograms, and Van Dyke Brown prints to create constructions consisting of photographic images.
Sometimes, the constructions are configured to take on the form or another aspect of the photographed subject. In this way, the photographs aren’t just two-dimensional images but come to life in a multi-demensional way.
To see more of this series, please visit the websites of Jose Betancourt and Susan Weil. The exhibition of this series, Blueprints, can be seen at the Tennessee Valley Museum of Art in Tuscumbia, Alabama until November 15th.
All images are via Jose Betancourt’s website.
I recently saw a clip of Jim Gaffigan in which he does a riff on our modern propensity to take photos of everything and then post them on all of our various social media outlets. I’ll admit, I’m guilty of taking a photo of my dinner and posting it on Facebook for all of my friends to see. The Defaced series by Los Angeles photographer Jen Gotch, ( which I’m featuring in my Artist Watch over on Escape Into Life today– see it here! ) reminds us that even before Instagram, we were still a society obsessed with capturing memories and sharing them. Check out her work on EIL today AND if you love her style, Jen has teamed up with HGTV host and stylist extraordinaire Emily Henderson on a lovely little round-up of Jen’s work on Open Sky. Check that out here!
