Best known for her blunt portrayal of girls on the brink of adulthood, Hellen van Meene is a Dutch natural light photographer. She explores the vulnerability and uncertainty of adolescent life through her work. While capturing the feelings of youth and awkwardness, she invents her own fictions and scenes using the girls as models. Through her unique way of viewing the models and her thoughtful technique, Hellen van Meene succeeds in making photos that portray girls at this significant time in their lives.
Inspiration for her photography comes from the people she meets, youth and her own work. While not directly influenced by any photographers, she does admire artists such as Diane Arbus and Sally Mann. Her greatest inspiration, however, is the youth she photographs. “Young people are so inspiring, and I love to be inspired by them. They’re so open and new and fresh, they have to explore everything, and I love to guide that” (Colberg). To create her square color portraits, Van Meene combines this with her inspiration of the small ordinary details such as “the light fall on white skin, bruises on an arm, hands which disfigure in water, and starting goose-pimples in frosty weather” (Schampers).
Van Meene calls her work “photographs of adolescent situations and attitudes which represent the type of normality we don’t usually share with others but keep ourselves” (Schampers). When looking at her photography, particularly her early work in her hometown, the scenes appear to be ordinary intimate moments in the natural environment of the model. Yet, there is usually something odd about them: a strange pose or clothing that does not fit or is inside out. The honest looking scenes often seem like windows into the lives of the girls. H...
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...natural light, she avoids the distraction of studio lighting. She feels this helps her remain open to possibilities instead of being preoccupied with setting up a scene. For her, “being in a studio is often about chasing an idea or a pre-conceived picture.” (Cotton) With the natural light, she is able to achieve photos with soft light and a classic feel.
Creating timeless scenes, Van Meene continues to explore the theme of adolescence in her work. Most recently she did a series of photo for the New York Times shooting young actresses who broke through in 2009 (Secret). What first drew me to her work was her use of natural light and color. As I continued to read about her I was intrigued by her thoughts on adolescence and how she goes about photographing them. The way she chooses her models and her reasons for photographing them help her make these unique images.
Alice Neel's most talked about painting, a Self-Portrait of herself, shocked the world when she painted herself in the nude at the age of 80-years-old. Neel, a 20th Century American Portrait Artist, painted models for over 50 years before turning the attention to herself (Tamara Garb). Neel wasn't a pinup girl and had depicted herself as the complete opposite (Jeremy Lewison). Unlike Neel, women avoided self-portraits of themselves, and nude self-portraits barely made it to canvas (Tamara Garb). Because of these reasons alone, Neel's Self-Portrait attracted scrutiny (Jeremy Lewison). Though Neel declared the painting to be frightful and indecent (Ibid), it still directed its focus on femininity, and the challenges women had to endure in our
Having established that the females are integral to the work, it is interesting to see how the illumination reveals more about th...
LaChapelle displays have many different connotations within, making his work a great source of analysis for the purpose of this study, having never before considered the deliberate societal commentary hidden within the photograph’s underlying narrative. This photo was originally created for Vogue- it is thought to have also been the inspiration for Rihanna’s music video for her 2011 song ‘S&M’.
The young girl sprawls on comfortably as a way of the illustrating her rebellion, as this is not the appropriate position to have one’s portrait taken. Also, the girl seems to be from a well of family since her dress is a fashion-forward, her shawl and bow matches with her socks. Her hair is neatly placed in clean and neat shoes that that seems to be new as they have buckles that sparkle. Conversely, the little girl has insignificant concern for all this primness where her unselfconscious pose presents a novel image regarding childhood (Jones
The face of the portrait is detailed, and more naturally painted than the rest of the composition. However, the left iris exceeds her eye and extends past the normal outline. The viewer can see every single brush stroke resulting in a unique approach to the capturing human emotion. The streaky texture combines with the smoothness flow of the artist’s hand creating contrast between the hair and the face. The woman’s hair is painted with thick and chunky globs of paint. The viewer can physically see the paint rising from the canvas and flowing into the movement of the waves of hair. Throughout the hair as well as the rest of the portrait Neel abandons basic painting studies and doesn’t clean her brush before applying the next color. Because of the deliberate choice to entangle the colors on the brush it creates a new muddy palate skewed throughout the canvas. Moving from the thick waves of hair, Neel abandons the thick painting style of the physical portrait and moves to a looser more abstract technique to paint the background. Despite the lack of linear perspective, Neel uses a dry brush technique for the colorful streaks in the background creating a messy illusion of a wall and a sense of space. The painting is not clean, precise, or complete; there are intentional empty spaces, allowing the canvas to pear through wide places in the portrait. Again, Neel abandons
When first approaching this work, one feels immediately attracted to its sense of wonder and awe. The bright colors used in the sun draws a viewer in, but the astonishment, fascination, and emotion depicted in the expression on the young woman keeps them intrigued in the painting. It reaches out to those who have worked hard in their life and who look forward to a better future. Even a small event such as a song of a lark gives them hope that there will be a better tomorrow, a thought that can be seen though the countenance by this girl. Although just a collection of oils on a canvas, she is someone who reaches out to people and inspires them to appreciate the small things that, even if only for a short moment, can make the road ahead seem brighter.
The essay How You See Yourself by Nicholas Mirzoeff discusses the evolution of art. The author discusses the use of art to represent changing identities over the years including cultural practices and societal expectations. The selfie, according to Nicholas Mirzoeff’s essay, is the equivalent of a self-portrait in the previous centuries preceding the technological development required for the present day selfie. The essay explores the different periods and the significance of art, particularly self-portraits, the selfies of the time, and their development over time. The author focuses on different themes including heroism, gender definition, and the focus of an image. Mirzoeff effectively provides examples illustrating and reinforcing the themes he highlights in his essay.
Both enamel on canvas, these realistic painting show women through the distorted reflection in a funhouse mirror. Minter is trying to show that women are show to follow an ideal form of beauty, but only to see themselves as flaws. “These works, like the others from this period, fused a feminist critique of the construction of gender and femininity with other postmodernist hallmarks of the 1980s, including the appropriation of mass-media imagery translated in a cool, detached, style of painting,” says Elissa Auther, co-curator of the exhibition. Minter has changed the way women is presents verse how men only use them for sexual
Whereas men had a so-called “head-start” with painting and sculpture, photography was pioneered by and equally associated with both genders. Sexualized images of women circulated via mass media. Described as a voyeuristic medium, photography was a powerful tool in deconstructing the male gaze and bringing private moments into the public domain (Bonney 1985: 11).
What fascinates me much, much more than anything else in my métier is the portrait, the modern portrait . . . I should like to do portraits which will appear as revelations to people in 100 years time."
Kruger’s exploration of the role of women in society, and gender as a social construct with her aggressive and provocative images, places her in an important role in recent social and feminist movements. This, combined with her unique artistic techniques, has made her a very influential artist of postmodern times.
From a young age, Richard Avedon was exposed to fashion. But little did the small boy sitting in his father’s 5th Avenue womens’ clothing store know, that he would later become the worlds’ biggest fashion photographer. He was born in New York City in 1923 to Jacob Avedon a Russian immigrant who worked his way up in the city to finally own his own clothing store. Avedon’s mother, Anna, was a musical and artsy woman who was his artistic muse. His sister, Louise, was also an inspiration to him. As a child, he constantly took pictures of his beautiful sister, his first model. His interest in photography began after joining a photography club at his local Young Men's Hebrew Association. After graduating high school in 1941, Richard attended Columbia University to study philosophy and poetry, but after just one year, he dropped out to enlist in the military marines. In the marines,he was a photographer in World War Two, taking pictures for identification cards.
Vincent van Gogh, one of the most inspiring artists to both the world and on a personal level. Being a fan of his artwork, it was an easy choice to decide to watch the film Lust for Life, which portrayed Mr. Gogh’s life through the good, and through the not so good. While watching the film, I learned more about Vincent than I could have imagined a movie could represent. The movie was a marvel and it really showed how Vincent was an amazing artist, even though he might not have been the best human in terms of health. For the entirety of the paper, the following content, unless otherwise stated, will come directly from the movie Lust for Life by Vincent Minnelli (1965).
The contrasts between depth and surface, figure and landscape, promiscuity and modesty, beauty and vulgarity all present themselves in de Kooning’s Woman and Bicycle. Although the figure is a seemingly normal woman out for an afternoon with her bike, she becomes so much more through the artist’s use of color, contrast, and composition. The exotic nature of woman presents itself in her direct stare and slick buxom breasts in spite of a nearly indiscernible figure. It is understood that, on the whole, de Kooning did not paint with a purpose in mind, but rather as an opportunity to create an experience, however, that does not go to say that there isn’t some meaning that can come of this work. Even Willem de Kooning once said that art is not everything that is in it, but what you can take out of it (Hess p.144).
Women desire to become beautiful and powerful, even if they don’t say it in words. And the Photographer plays with that concept and creates that desire, that you can become that person you see in the photograph. And live that lifestyle. Photographers use techniques from the cinema/cinematic, to create the desire of viewers/Buyer/Consumers. The cinematic techniques made it possible the way people lived and the...