Photography Meets Design

Commando Group (A group of people who specialize in visual identity, art direction, illustration and photography).

The objective of this project is to investigate the boundaries between photography and graphic design/illustration and hopefully produce something remarkable in the process. The original photographs were provided by photographer Damian Heinisch. - Tumblr 

The work produced by Heinish and the Commando Group has a strong fantasy feel linking it back to the idea if Kittelsen's work, however not only that the work has something else hidden away, something that is perhaps more apparent in Kittelsen's work. The strong element of darkness. On first inspection these creatures of the mountains are sweet, perhaps a child's illustration much like the Gruffalo. However when looking back at these images there is a fear of these creates some where in my mind,  the shear scale of them makes them feel powerful and domineering over the viewer. Image too is also an image that unnerves, the fact that the creature is crying. This emotion on a creature so big scares and questions, when that emotional what could something of that size do? 

Theodor Severin Kittelsen

However this work makes you feel you can see then creatures as defenders of the landscape. 

How The Face Changes With Shifting A Light Source

Sparkles and Wine - Teaser 

Lighting can easily be taken for granted, yet it is one of the most important things when it comes to any kind of visual art, whether that be photography, instillation or film. What makes this interesting is the effects that the light has on the face and the features, it allows us to see just what different light positions do to effect the face, the mood and the emotion of the image. However this video also uses colours to evoke more emotion on top of the lighting, this being something to bare in mind if you were trying out some of the lighting positions that have been used in this video. 

Colours will also change the mood, cold colours (such as blues, purples) making for a more vulnerable image while warmer colours (such as red, yellows, pinks oranges) making for a more aggressive or sexual appearance.  

Eszter Burghardt

After being uninspired for a while I began looking for new and exciting art, insulation or photography, this is when I discovered the work of Eszter Burghardt, her work is different to anything else that I have seen through the use of macro. The way that she makes you believe that these spaces and landscapes are real, with the use of tilt shifts and high use of macro lens and filters. 

The images have both come from different bodies of work, the first comes from the series Wooly Sagas, while the second comes from the series Edible Vistas. All her work can be found here.

A WOOLY SAGA OF CREEK 

WOOLY MAGMA

VIRTUALLY FLAVORED

NO CAKEWALK

Mehmet Ozgur Smoke Art

While looking for inspiration for some of my own work I came across the work of Mehmet Ozgur and his work. As you might know his work is some what like the smoke art that I created in Photoshop some time ago. 
His work is magic, creating a serial and dream like state with in his images. What drew me to the work was the second image, this was the first that I ever saw. From here I looked into more of his work only to find that each image become more and more complex with new and exciting ways of capturing smoke in different forms. 
You can find more of his work here

Sand Art - Andres Amador

Andres Amador creates his work using the beach as his canvas, where by he carves floral patterns into the sand. The work is created in only a few hours before it is last forever to the sea. The beauty of this work is that it is lost to sea, its only by the reproductions through photographs that we can see and appreciate these works.  
What's fascinating about the way that Amador works is that he uses Google Maps to find areas that have large areas of sand. 

The work is crested with the aesthetic quality in mind, each image is unique. What is hard to get across in the images is the actual scale that Amador works. 

                                                                             

Kinetic Drawing Sculpture - Karina Smigla-Bobinski

A sculpture, a body made of stone standing tall inside a gallery or with in a city on the side of a fountain. Isn't that what we all think of when we hear the word 'Sculpture'?
Karina Smigla-Bobinki is a German artists that works with in the ideas of sculpture, photography, video instillations and most importantly interactive instillation. 

The work in this post is her helium filled sphere with charcoal spikes. On entering the gallery space the audience is faces with a large floating sphere, that in some ways looks ominous, and much like a sea mine. However what makes this work unique is that for it to work as an exhibition piece it requires the audiences reaction to the work. It really looks at the way that people interact with their surroundings, when faced with an instillation such as this it is up to the audience to make the art work, work by pushing, pulling, turning, spinning and dragging the sphere. The result of the audeinces interaction is shown in the images above. The walls have become darken with the scribbles of charcoal, while the ball its self has become covered with the finger prints of all those who interacted with the sphere. In some was it is filled with memory of the people that worked with the sphere. 
What makes this even more interesting is that no two people with make the same markings and no two exhibition spaces will look the same after the show, each time this is shown with in a gallery it is different to the last. 

Dot to Dot - Yayoi Kusama's

Obliteration Room

The Obliteration room, an interactive insulation by Yayoi Kusama. The work of Kusama has taken many different turns in its time, from painting to interactive insulations, but all with one thing common they all use spots. 
You could argue that the work of Kusama is pointillism, where by the artist creates whole images from the use of different colour and toned dots. But Kusama has made this genre into something much more sophisticated and larger on scale. 
The work Obliteration room is an insulation that was made completely interactive to those who viewed the gallery space. 

The gallery was transformed into what looks to be a replica of the contemporary home, however Kusama painted the entire space white, creating a 'blank canvas'. On entering the show the audience is asked to participate in creating one of Kusama's many ponitalsit works. Each person is given stickers that they are allowed to place any where in the room, upon any surface, object or wall that they wish. You can see the results. The room in what you could call stage one, there is a blurring of boundaries between chair leg and wall, wall and book case, however when you reach stage two, you begin to see the lines that define the shapes and spaces that we inhabit. Once we reach stage three we are back at the beginning, there is no definition between objects and we are once again looking at an almost blank room of  pure colour. 

Giuseppe Arcimboldo - Four Seasons Painting

In conjunction to my last post on Levi Van Velum, I will be looking at the work of Giuseppe Arcimboldo.
The work of Van Velum remided me of the work of Arcimbldo, the four images have a personal connection to me as my Grandfather had replicas of the images in his home, every now and then he would get them down for me to look at. 
the work is very similar, though creating a landscape though the use of portraits. 

Arcimboldo's work has been considered to be the work of a mad man, the product of a deranged mind. However this is, an work that is full of imagination, as well as cleverly arranged objects, creating abstract, surrealist images representing each season. 

Giuseppe Arcimboldo - Four Seasons 

Van Velum

You can see that there is, possibly a connection to the work of Arcimbldo and the work of Van Velum, this idea of creating a landscape upon some ones face, whether this  be though painting or though sculpture and instillation. 

Books as Art - Guy Larmmee

The Great Wall 

The artist Guy Larmmee has mainly worked in worked in photography of the landscape, however in this post its the book art that s of interest. The work was created in 2008 and continued on to 2009 and then 2010.  
The work was inspired by The Great Wall of China. 
The work is complied of a 100 volumes of encyclopaedias. 
   
'So I cave landscapes out of books and I paint Romantic landscapes. Mountains of disused knowldeg returned to what they are: mountains. They erode a bit more and they become hills. Then they falltern and become fields where apparently nothing is happening. Piles of obsolete encyclopaedias returned to that which does not need to say anything, that which simply IS. Fog and clouds erase everything we know everything we think we are' -  Colossal Art and Design, Guy Larmmee, December 22, 2011.

The detail of this work is incredible, the way that a series or just an individual book can be transformed into something so familiar to us can become something very unknown to us,in the form of a book sculpture. 

The Art of Arrangement - The Holburne Museum

Still Life with Shellfish - 1650 - 1699 

Art of Arrangement: Photography and the Still Life Tradition

The tradition of still life is extensive, from painting to photography. This exhibition at The Holburne Museum in Bath aims to explore this transition from then until now. 
The show opens with one of the permanent collections still life painted pieces, Still Life with Shellfish. 
If we look at this image and study it we can begin to pick out areas of information that help to identify still life though photography. 
Still life will more often then not include fruit, this being a sign of wealth and power, however the pocket watch on the table show us that time is always at work and that all will die and rot away much like the wealth and power that is gained over time. It is a reminder to us all that life in any case, it not eternal. 

The Show
In this exhibition we are taken thought the ages of still life and are shown changes and the similarities that occur, The show includes many original prints by William Henry Fox Talbot, Harold Edgerton and Rodger Fenton.     

The images selected for this review best show the tradition, changes and similarities of the idea of still life. 

William Henry Fox Talbot, uses the tradition of fruit taken and inspired by the use of painting.  

William Henry Fox Talbot - Still Life

Rodger Fenton's Still Life with Ivory Tankard and Fruit again looks that the tradition of fruit and silver wear gathered elaborately on a table. This image once more speaks out about decay and the passing time that we all experience.

Roger Fenton - Still Life with Ivory Tankard and Fruit

Ian Beesley - Disused Block

The final image that I have included is Ian Beesley's images of the broken clocks, this image was taken in a Mill in Bradford, the image is showing the death of Textile industry, again the use of clocks showing the changes over time and how even industry comes to an end much like natural and organic objects do. 

This show was well put together, the transition between the past style of creating a still life image, composed of fruit clustered on a table to the idea of a more contemporary way of looking at how an image can be seen as a still life. 
A well worth show to have visited.