An Essay On Pinky Bass

The featured artist in April at Georgia Southwestern State University was Pinky Bass. She is an American photographer who specializes in pinhole photography (“Pinky/MM Bass” 2014). Pinhole photography is using a simple camera without a lens often used to capture real-time movement for example the Earth circling the sun (Pinhole Photography 2014). She not only specializes in pinhole photography, but black and white photography as well (Pinky/MM Bass 2014). Ms. Bass was born in 1936 and received her M.F.A. in photography from Georgia State University in 1988(Pinky/MM Bass 2014). At the age of 50, her work has been featured at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the High Museum in Atlanta, and the Birmingham Museum of Art (Pinky/MM Bass 2014). She has also participated in many exhibitions all over the world (Pinky/MM Bass 2014).

The collection I chose to research was “Contemplating My Internal Organs”. This collection uses black and white pinhole photographs of an elderly woman. Internal organs are expressed with various colors of string stitched through the pinholes. The repetition of the threads used brings a sense of cohesiveness to the collection. Each piece in the collection focuses on a certain organ or organ system of the human body. Ms. Bass uses certain colors to define separate organs and blood lines in the body. For instance, there is a piece that depicts the circulatory system. She uses blue thread to show the deoxygenated veins carrying blood toward the heart. In contrast, she uses red thread to show the oxygen-rich arteries carrying blood away from the heart to other areas of the body. She also angles the thread in a way to show movement of the blood throughout the body. Furthermore, the angles of the thread provide texture...

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...flected in the life, aging, and death theme that Ms. Bass portrays in her art. Although not directly connected to these issues, her art clearly expresses the importance of the human body.

Many college aged students are not worried about sickness, aging, or death. We are focused on our careers and interests and less focused on political and social issues. I think that Ms. Bass’ artwork being shown on a college campus is a reality check for many students. After researching her motives and reasoning behind some of her collections, I realize how important life truly is. When you are more focused on school and projects to graduate, you do not realize the value of your body, let alone the organs and organ systems in it. Although interpretation is left up to the audience, Ms. Bass clearly shows the importance of the organ systems in the human body being an external issue.