Subject Matter Project
I have always loved old photographs; the subject matter, the blurred out or bleached out quality of the images and their colour. I wanted to see if by taking my grandmothers old photo album and manipulating the images, like removing details such as the face, would other people relate to them and project their own ideas onto them. I wanted to see if these manipulated photographs or images in conjunction with the damaged frames and the old-fashioned wallpaper would lead people to construct a history for the figures in the photographs. I hoped that the intensely patterned wallpaper and the small cluster of photos would remind people pf a home that they visited, perhaps a grandparent or elderly neighbour, and that people would come to their own conclusion about the history or stories behind the photographs. I looked at artists such as Gerhard Richer, for his blurred out paintings of photographs. John Stezaker, for his slicing and rearranging of old portraits. Jamie Shovlin, for construction of a fictional character, 'Naomi V. Jelish' and his documentation of her constructed past. Annette Messager’s clusters of photographs inspired my presentation.
Materials Project
I began this project looking at the texture of skin and the translucency of it, the layers and the fine blue lines that can be seen underneath. I did some work on this but quickly my interest moved to the lines and wrinkles in an elderly person's skin. I used a variety of materials to try to capture the delicacy and fragility of the skin, to fold and crease it as it would with old age. I began working on a large scale but felt that it didn't represent my idea. The small scale of the work seemed far more delicate and intimate, that you would have to move close to see it properly and not from a distance.
