RYAN McGINLEY
Innovative Artist Ryan McGinley’s Wandering Comma
The innovative photography shown is the creation of New York City artist Ryan McGinley.
His breathtaking inventions are masterpieces in which he claims, “My
photographs are about removal: bringing people to nondescript locations,
to places that aren't recognizable, removing their clothes, capturing
them with a very limited style palette. I try to think about how
timelessness, isolation, and style interact.”
Ryan McGinley's exhibit "Wandering Comma" can be found at the Alison Jacques Gallery in London until December 22, 2011.
Other renowned publications have fantastic reviews of McGinley and his works:
"These
latest works play up photography's marriage of chance and artifice,
with nudes cavorting in impossibly golden molten water, waving at purple
skies, diving from knotted tree roots or into the tangerine-hued bowels
of the earth." The Guardian, November 2, 2011
"They
have the cinematic scope of epics that tell a story... and fit with the
theme of his 'Wandering Comma' series, of engulfment by color." -The
Independent, November 27, 2011
JEN DAVIS
Webcam, a series of photographs by Brooklyn-based Jen Davis, comments on relationships in physical and virtual life, which can be parallel to each other or completely dissimilar. Webcam
documents a fictional, web-based relationship between the artist and
“Alexi,” a character that Davis constructs as an avatar for her
relationship. Over the course of three months the fictional relationship
evolves from friends to lovers, imitating the progression of an actual
real-world relationship, despite the fact that “Alexi” never sees the
artist. The photographs fixate on the false sense of intimacy created in
the virtual world that attempts to mask feelings of loneliness and
isolation
GARY FREEBURG
As well as his commitment to teaching with the UA system at KPC and constructing and directing the campus gallery, Gary made enormous contributions to the arts of the state of Alaska. His photographs are part of the permanent collections of the University of Alaska Museum in Fairbanks, Kenai Peninsula College, The State Council on the Arts State Arts Bank and the Kenai Peninsula Visitors and Cultural Center.
http://www.alaska.edu/uajourney/notable-people/soldotna/gary-l.-freeburg/
NAOMI ELENA
I am a photographer and a dancer. I studied and pursued contemporary dance for many years before focusing on photography. Thus, the body, gesture and its relationship to its surroundings and itself are important parts of my work. Through the body and space I articulate emotional states by capturing the expression, postures and gestures to create a visual experience that evokes that emotion or psychological state. The nuanced ephemeral moments of the personal and existential.
CRISTIN NORINE
The Public Isolation Project consists of two symbiotic and simultaneous art pieces–Joshua Jay Elliott’s An Examinable Life and Cristin Norine’s The Future of Socializing.
An analog analogy of the contemporary experience of living in the
Internet age, Cristin Norine will spend one month living within the
confines of the bSIDE6 Gallery—in total view from the gallery’s windows.
Her isolation will be alleviated solely by digital interactions with
the outside world. Viewers of the piece will reflect on their own
expanded accessibility that technology has brought them.
Technologies
like social media and smart phones make it easier to correspond with
others more frequently, but could these forms of communication replace
analog interactions completely? Cristin’s communication restrictions
will allow her to explore this idea and determine how it affects her
physically and emotionally.
AARON HOBSON
Artist Explores Street View's Loneliest Lanes
Google
is everywhere, including places one might least suspect. Photographer
Aaron Hobson has created a series of breathtaking panoramas highlighting
some of the most remote places documented by Google Street View. In an
interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, he discusses his virtual journeys.
SPIEGEL ONLINE:
Mr. Hobson, you didn't photograph your latest series of photos yourself
-- they came from Google's Street View service. How did that come
about?
Hobson:
I began working on a film I was asked to direct by a producer in Los
Angeles. I am unfamiliar with Los Angeles. Since that is where we are
going to shoot the film, I begen to use Google Street View
to do the location scouting for the project. I spent countless hours
traveling the streets of L.A. in search of locations ideal for each
scene. I was simply amazed at how much area was photographed by the
Google cars. There wasn't an alley or street in L.A. that I could not
'drive' down and look in every direction every 15 feet for a shot.
SPIEGEL ONLINE:
Los Angeles? It seems like you were looking for an escape. Your 'GSV
Cinemascapes' often show odd places in remote parts of the world.
Hobson:
After location scouting I began to explore other places around the
globe for my amusement. After a few days I was addicted to this virtual
world of travel. I would start on a remote road in Norway, for example,
and just go forward on it for miles and miles, hour after hour. I would
become immersed and 'lost' in this world. Then I began to explore more
remote locations. I live in a remote location myself, and I wanted to
find other places similar to where I live.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: It sounds like a nice leisure activity, how did it eventually become work too?
Hobson: After
hours and hours of driving through empty countrysides, tundras, and
deserts, I began to put together a dozen or more locations that matched
my aesthetic appeal and narrative. I decided to turn my gaze outward at
the world and the isolation of other people and places through the
Google technology. This process is about the amazing technology of
Google Street View and the places it has allowed anyone with a computer
and internet access to explore. I am trying to share remote locations of
splendor and beauty, places of isolation where life is difficult and
slower being so far removed from large societies.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: The photos are the latest works in the Cinemescapes series you began in 2007. Most of these were self portraits. Why?
Hobson:
I picked up a camera for the first time in 2007 after seven years of
living in the remote Adirondack Mountains of New York state near the
Canadian border. I had started a family and settled down to a permanent
full-time job. The slow pace of life up here allowed me to reflect on my
life and particularly my younger days of turmoil, drugs, and trouble. I
started to photograph myself in isolated and emotional narratives as a
way of releasing those memories and feelings. It was a visual diary of
sorts since I am not good at writing and found the process of
photography to be very fulfilling.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: The images have a narrative quality with a cinematic touch. Were they successful?
Hobson:
They were never intentionally developed for the world in general or
made for anyone other than me and friends I had on social networking
sites such as Flickr. In 2007, they went viral on the internet just like
the Google Street View images are now. I had moderate success in that I
was able to travel and exhibit these personal photographs in galleries
from London, New York to Los Angeles. There were articles in numerous
well-known art publications and websites as well.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: What triggered the online excitement over your latest images?
Hobson:
I don't know. The internet can work like a flash flood sometimes, and
in this case it can cause damage as well. My website has been struggling
to stay on its legs from all the traffic and almost every other visitor
has encountered an error of website overload issues. It's just the
world we live in now, I suppose. Information can be shared and explored
in an instant anywhere across the globe. It's quite amazing.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: You've received the most attention from Spain, France Italy and Germany. Why do you think that is?
Hobson:
My 2007-2010 work did achieve fairly high attention before, appearing
in numerous interviews and articles in magazines and newspapers across
Europe. I'm not quite sure why that is. Maybe it doesn't work in the US
because the cinematic influences don't stem from Jean-Claude Van Damme,
or because they aren't overtly graphic and over the top. They are subtle
and need to be explored in a more cerebral manner.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Stylistically, the Google Street View photos fit in seamlessly with your Cinemascapes series.
Hobson:
Yes, they do. They are a continuation of that original work, or a
finalization. It went from the world viewing me in images, to me viewing
the world. My process is quite simple and true to the original source. I
don't alter by adding, removing, or excessively retouching. I spend
probably 10 minutes processing each of the GSV images after gathering
them from the street view. These are 2-3 screen captures then stitched
together to make the panoramic format. The signature look that I try to
achieve in each of my images is to enhance the mood and atmosphere in
three different areas: lighting, color, and depth of focus.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Working
with photos like these is different than using the camera yourself. Do
the pictures feel like your own work, or do you feel less ownership of
them?
Hobson:
I attribute a ton of it to Google technology. They are amazing and I
truly love what they are doing with this project of canvasing the earth.
They feel like my own in that it is more about the process of making
them that matters to me than the final product. I don't have my photos
hanging on my walls and I don't look at them very often. The best part
for me is the creation, after that, it is viewers who can decide if they
enjoy them or not. So no, I did not go to these places in real life and
take these photos, but I feel connected to some of these towns and
became familiar with their streets, houses and people in a bizarre
virtual reality that is hard to describe. It's silly to describe how it
feels to travel around central France for a week on Google Street View,
and how if I happened upon the same town or street and recognized the
people that are there, I would want to say hello to them as if I know
them. Sounds crazy.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Do you have plans to continue the project?
Hobson:
I have already benefited from this experience and continue to do so
with occasional trips to select villages and posting the photos like a
travel album for friends to view via my Facebook fan page or Tumblr. I
hope more people will enjoy the work and go explore the world of Google
Street View. If I had advice on optimal viewing for the best experience,
it would be to have a 27-inch iMac, a dark room, and a bottle of wine
-- preferably Medoc or Bordeaux.
Interview conducted by Frank Patalong
ANDREW CRANSTON
Artist of the week 37: Andrew Cranston
Jessica
Lack continues her series on contemporary artists with Andrew Cranston
whose dense claustrophobic paintings are inspired by rooms in great
works of literature
Like
Francis Bacon, Andrew Cranston's currency is claustrophobia,
imprisoning both viewer and subject in a hellish nothing. By using
fiction as his source material, he ensures that his subjects remain
forever suspended in an impenetrable isolation.
Cranston
makes paintings of rooms alluded to in literature. Perhaps the most
obvious example is a split-panelled piece, Illustration for a Franz
Kafka story (2nd version) (2007), depicting the bedroom of Gregor Samsa,
the hapless travelling salesman who transforms into an insect in
Kafka's Metamorphosis.
What
is disconcerting is Cranston's tendency to suggest that these rooms are
stage sets. In many of his paintings the walls are merely partitions,
and a dense background encroaches and encircles the picture, trapping
whatever is within. As a viewer of these solitary scenes, the experience
is intensely unsettling. There seems to be no recourse. In the few
paintings where Cranston has painted a door, it opens on to an
impassable grey expanse; there is little indication of another world
outside the murky confines.
These art-works were a big hit at East International in
2007, and the Royal College of Art graduate now divides his time
between studios in Aberdeen and Glasgow, both of which he describes as
suitably uninviting. This is palpable in his recent painting
Man/Partition (2008), which depicts the artist in his studio resting his
head against a free-standing white canvas. It could conceivably be a
slab of plaster: either way, his chances of support are thin. Perhaps he
hopes the aesthetic concepts of minimalism – truth, order, harmony and
simplicity – will be enough to keep the square grounded. Unfortunately
the encroaching blackness surrounding the tableau (there is nothing
solid but the scrubby dirt of the studio floor) offers little hope of
redemption. fart
Why we like him:
For Blank Canvas (2008). Like Man/Partition it imparts a despondent
poetry about the creative process. A white canvas is tacked on to the
wall of a studio, the only image on it is a muddy grey shadow with no
discernable features.
First impression:
Cranston's earliest memory of art was a print of Van Gogh's sunflowers
in his parents' front room, which for years he thought was a dog's head.
Tortured artist, then? Certainly: he suffers from claustrophobia.
AMY GUIDRY
I am a Louisiana-based artist and currently reside in Lafayette. I grew up near New Orleans and attended Loyola University New Orleans, earning my BA in Visual Art. I have exhibited my work nationally at venues such as the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, the Acadiana Center for the Arts, and the Alexandria Museum of Art.
My work stems from two loves- Psychology and Art. With Surrealism being the grand marriage of the two, I was naturally drawn to every aspect behind the movement. Using images conceived from dreams and free association that I catalog in several sketchbooks, I stitch together whole series from countless thumbnail sketches. Themes I explore involve the human psyche- who we are and how we interact with each other, including our relationship with other animals and the natural world.
http://beinart.org/artists/amy-guidry/gallery/paintings/
