Cornelia Parker

'For some years Cornelia Parker's work has been concerned with formalising things beyond control, containing the volatile and making it into something that is quiet and contemplative like the 'eye of the storm.' Through a combination of visual and verbal allusions her work triggers cultural metaphors and personal associations, which allow the viewer to witness the transformations of the most ordinary objects into something compelling and extraordinary.

• Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View, 1991
• A garden shed and contents blown up

Many of Cornelia Parker's artworks are ephemeral or 'site-specific', created for a single time and place. Cold Dark Matter; An Exploded View (1991) was such a work, in which Cornelia Parker had the British Army explode a garden shed, and the fragments were suspended in the air around a single source of illumination casting shadows of the shattered pieces on the walls.

The idea of suspending objects and casting shadows from them could have potential behind the idea. The depth that could come from which objects and how you cast the shadows could be very striking, like the exploding shed which is one of Cornelia's most known piece. 

 

• Alter Ego, 2004
• Silver plated objects, wire

Cornelia Parker is a London-based sculptor and installation artist. Her work is regarded internationally for its complex, darkly humorous, ironic style.

From looking into Cornelia's work, I found her shed project the most inspirational, with the idea of blowing up the shed is very extravagant and exciting, and then creating the shadows from it, is visually capturing. I can expect when in personal with the installation that it can create such an intriguing atmosphere.

Brass Art is another artist which projects shadows from objects like Cornelia above. This piece is called Still Life No.1, which used 3D objects in acrylic polymer, light source, table in black box environment.



Brass Art explore the potential of combining old and new media through strategies of proto-cinematic optical illusion and cutting edge digital technologies.
Looming figures and monstrous fusions invoke an immediate affiliation with the nineteenth century phantasmagoria. A simple, travelling light source casts a slowly spinning of shadows around the walls and ceilings. The piece, is a table bearing an arrangement of museum specimens, tiny figurines and cellophane -their varying opacities against the bare bulb producing the silhouettes and glimmers which create the play of forms.

From seeing this at an exhibition, I found the overall idea and concept of the work very influential again with the concept of projecting shadows from objects. Combining this idea of objects and shadows could help me lead towards a similar concept for my own final piece.


When thinking about different ways of experimenting with shadows without jumping straight to the end, I thought about starting from the very beginning; with shadow prints/ photograms. Where best place to start with shadows than the beginning of photography, experimenting with these can start me off with an example of shadows, shadows from objects rather than people. Here is my link to the experiment: 

Kira and Anya Together Images

One of our main tasks when visiting them both, was to get a image of them together. Leaning away from the stereotypical image of smiles, but capturing their individual personality. 

Anya Images

Anya is the 9 year old from the sisters, her personality is very different from her sisters, Anya is very hyper and excited all the time, where as Kira is calm and happy.

The images below show her in 'action' capturing her being herself, in their house and garden. Anya being herself, is very quick and constantly moving about, so to get images of her was a challenge in itself, but exciting.

When visiting their home, they have a dog called shadow, Anya when visiting was very hand on Shadow, pulling him around to play etc. This is clearly shown in the image above, with Shadows reluctant eyes gradually closing, Anya's face of 'Grrr' and her hand on his nose to stop him from moving. 

This image doesn't capture what Anya's true personality is, running about, playing and being 9. Here she's smiling angelically, a tamed Anya. 

    

Anya's fascination with the dog was funny, leading to him playing the piano, or standing on the keys eating cheese.

These two images below were taken in their garden, with Anya running about with Shadow. I feel they capture the moment perfectly in action, showing Anya and Shadow playing frantically. Anya's facial expression in both express how she felt during this moment, with reacting to the dog and laughing. 

Kira Images

Kira was the 12 year old, she out of the sisters was a lot more timid but lovely, this was something I wanted to show in her images. Below are the individual Kira photos, they each are set in a different place in their house, at different points of meeting her and her sister. 

This image from the way she is sat with her head and shoulder scrunched together, could show her shyness and vulnerability in this situation, with her knees leaning in the other direction and her facial expression. 

When playing in the garden, they have a massive swing, this image simply shows her having fun and being herself. 

Caught in laughter, this image I feel shows her, her naturally. 

When speaking to Kira about her likes and hobbies, she mentioned that she especially likes drawing and her mirror she got recently. 

Kira and Anya Research

With being given a name and number, together with Ashleigh we rang this number to find out who the people were and find more information about our anonymous companions.

With finding out the that Kira and Anya are a 9 and 12 year old, I researched into photographers who may have at one point in their life photographed children.

Diane Arbus and Sally Mann are two that I researched into; very different photographers but both have very intriguing and inspiring images. They both have different styles and experiences to inspire from in their lives.

Sally Mann is an American photographer, best known for large black and white photographs, at first of her young children then later of landscape suggesting death and decay.

These images show her incredibly intimate and abrupt portrayal of family life. Her work has attracted controversy at times but it has always been influential.

Between 1984 and 1991 she worked on what is undoubtedly her most famous series Immediate Family 1992 which focuses on her 3 children then under 10 years.
Whilst the series touches on ordinary moment in their daily lives- playing, sleeping, eating, it also speaks to larger themes such as sexuality and death.

Diane Arbus
American photographer and writer noted for black and white square photographs of deviant and marginal people. (Dwarfs, giants, transvestites, nudists, circus performers) or of people whose normality seems ugly or surreal.
Arbus was "afraid that she would simply be known as the photographer of freaks" however that phrase has been repeatedly used to describe her.

Identical Twins, Roselle, New Jersey (1967)- Young twin sisters Cathleen and Colleen stand side by side in dark dresses. The twin on the right slihtly smiles and twin on left slightly frowns.

Child with toy hand grenade in Central Park (1962)- With his left strap of his jumper awkwardly hanging off his shoulder tensely holds his long, thin, arms by his side. Clenching a toy grenade in his right hand and holding his left hand in a claw-like gesture, his facial expression is maniacal.

"I do feel I have some slight corner on something about the quality of things. I mean its very subtle and a little embarrassing to me, but i really believe there are things which nobody would see unless I photographed them."

Looking into these photographers gave me an insight into ways of photographing children, obviously the way that Mann or Arbus photographed is very extravagant, it sparked of ideas and ways of getting Kira and Anya just to be themselves. I felt the images needed to show them as a character, being able to show what they're like and portraying this across in the image.

When visiting them the first time I found that they both had opposite characteristic and personalities, this then was something to capture in the images.

Connections between artists and photographers

Edward Hopper and Gregory Crewdson


Edward Hopper was a prominent American realist painter and printmaker. While most popularly known for his oil paintings, he was equally as talented as a water-colourist and printmaker in etching. In both urban and rural scenes, his paintings reflected his personal vision of modern American life.
Reluctant to talk about his life and work, Hopper simply summed up his art by stating, "The whole answer is there on the canvas."
Hopper paid particular attention to geometrical design and the careful placement of human figures in proper balance with their environment. He was a slow and methodical artist as he said, “It takes a long time for an idea to strike. Then I have to think about it for a long time. I don’t start painting until I have it all worked out in my mind. I’m all right when I get to the easel".


Hopper derived his subject matter from two primary sources: one, the common features of American life (gas stations, motels, restaurants, theatres, rail roads, and street scenes) and its inhabitants; and two, seascapes and rural landscapes.



Gregory Crewdson is an American photographer best known for his elaborate staged scenes of American homes and neighbourhoods.
His photographs usually take place in small town America, but are dramatic and cinematic. They feature often disturbing, surreal events. The photographs are shot using a large crew, and are elaborately staged and lit. The films Blue Velvet, Safe and Close Encounters of the Third Kind have influenced his style, as well as the painter Edward Hopper and Diane Arbus.

As mentioned above Gregory was greatly influenced by Edward Hopper's intricate placement and thought into the paintings he spent time on. Hopper's work is grounded in an American sensibility that deals with ideas of beauty, theatricality, sadness, rootlessness and desire.

"I’m sitting in a hotel room in Massachusetts thinking about the past three days I have spent driving around looking for a location that feels like it is nondescript, but is very particular. In other words, I have been searching for a sense of the American landscape that is linked intrinsically to Edward Hopper’s vision."

There is always a suggestion of framing in his pictures, whether it's windows, doorways or shafts of light but the single frames he refers to are also very much about the fragment.
Hopper's narratives occur in moments that are forever suspended between a "before" and an "after"- elliptical impregnated moments that never really resolve themselves. There is an enormous reservoir of psychological anxieties in his work, a sense of stories repressed beneath the calm surface.


David Hockney and Pablo Picasso


David Hockney is an English painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer and photographer. David is an important contributes to the Pop Art movement in the 1960's, his is considered one of the most influential British artists of the twentieth century.
When Hockney moved to the United States, at this time of the 1960's he was known for his 'swimming pool' paintings, during the'70s for this elaborate stage sets and the '80s for his photo collages.

"Until cubism, all art, all pictures, could be 'read' by anybody. If this hadn't been so, the Christian message wouldn't Christian message wouldn't have been seen by peasants and its importance would have been diminished."




 

Pablo Picasso was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and stage designer.One of the most greatest and influential artists of the 20th century, he is widely known for co-founding the Cubism movement; the invention of constructed sculptor, the co-invention of collage, and for the wide variety of styles he developed and explored.

"Art is a lie that makes us realise the truth."

Picasso's work is often categorized into periods. The most commonly accepted periods in his work are the Blue Period (1901-1904), the Rose Period (1905-1907), the African-influenced Period (1908-1909), Analytic Cubism (1909-1912), and Synthetic Cubism (1912-1919).

"God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat. He has no real style, he just goes on trying other things."

"In Picasso's pictures you can see the front and back of a person simultaneously. That means you've walked round them. It's a sort of memory picture; we make pictures like that in our heads"

David Hockney was greatly influenced by Picasso's work all his life; "Picasso is still influencing me. Of course, I haven't got that kind of energy, or skill."
He says himself: "I think Picasso was, without doubt, the greatest portraitist of the 20th century, if not any other century."