Week In Review

Yes, my work was critiqued this week, by our visiting artist Simen Johan. He thought that my work was alright, but that it was too obvious. That it didn't let the viewer be able to ask questions about the work. It was too obvious, and it needs more ambiguity and mystery to the work. Oh, and by the way this is for my murder portraits series. He also said that it would be better if i didn't use red blood, but another color and just referenced blood, but made the color like a baby blue or black or something like that. I thought that was a really good idea though, just reference blood and challenge that viewer to try and understand a reference to blood and violence when presenting something completely different. He also said about my murder portrait series that i should pull back some more and shoot more of a scene instead of a portrait. Which is okay to me, i rather liked shooting the portraits rather than crime scenes, but he said that because he wanted more mystery and more of a challenge to the viewer.

About my self-portraits he said that there was potential and that i need to keep shooting more. I told him that my portraits were being messed up and fractioned but being in a state of balance. To that he said, that i need to break up the photos on my head more, because that's where one will be divided and fractured. Which is completely true and I will do more on that. He also said just keep shooting more and do tons of these self-portraits.

The most motivational thing that happened to me this week will be this fall break that is coming up. It will give me time to do everything and catch up on work that needs to be caught up on. It gives me some free time that i can work during, so technically it's not that free, but that's alright, it's fall break.

What needs to be achieved in next weeks studio practice is a critique on my behalf (as well as Cindy and Alma). So that means make prints or a good way to present all of my work. Write down all that I have been reading on self portraits and defend my ass as best as I can. That's what needs to be accomplished, as well as shooting about 7 more photographs, yeah...that's a good number.

We didn't have studio this week, there was Simen Johan here. But, in that time, I did some homework and shot some photographs.

Artistic Failure? Hmm. Well, I shot this one hockney style portrait of myself, but nothing really matched up and it didn't look good at all. I just needed more shots and try to shoot from the same distance each time.

My most profound thought was that I am going to print these hockney style portraits out life size. I feel that the presence created by the size and subject will be very strong and be able to fill a gallery very well and will show what i really want to present to the viewers.

Yes we did have a visiting artist this week, Simen Johan. I thought his work was really good. I liked the found imagery and all the digital manipulations that he put into his work. They were very creative and I understand why he said what he said to me during my critique. I like the use of imagination in his work, it definitely required a lot of it. His recent work with animals and his sculptures were what i liked the most, and seemed to be the most imaginative in my opinion. Those two series of work were my favorites, but it's not like i didn't like his other work though, it was all good. In relation to my work, like i said, i understand why he critiqued my work like he did. He said I needed more mystery and that i needed to challenge the viewer more, and stop giving up all of the information in my photographs. I must really start to challenge, and I will try.