Brainstorm Images: Life-Death, Heaven-Hell

Ron- here are my images for the Brainstorm project.  I have done further research and thinking and I plan to narrow it down to Life- Death. Focusing on imagery associated with the two words and contradictions and ambigiuosity that goes along with the words.  Below is my original idea and even though I have narrowed down and reshaped this idea I think it is still relavent.

We live and we die, maybe we go to heaven or maybe we go to hell.  For the fortunates life is heaven- and death is usually a hellish experience for them because they love their life so much.  For the unfortunates life is hell- and death is heaven, or a liberating experience.  In my last project I touched metaphorically on how humans can make heaven out of hell or hell out of heaven, this is another relation of these words that is intriguing to me.  I think stuff like this is amazing and very relative to life throughout history and myth.  I also am fascinated with exploring the the complex emotions that go along with these words.  All together I would like to work with imagery, emotions, metaphors, and relationships of form to convey life-death heaven- hell and how all the words intertwine.  

Jayne Hinds Bidaut:  Turtle skeleton

I was originally drawn to this image because I saw the description first and it said Bidaut used photogram tintypes and I thought that was awesome.  The form is very recognizable and the claws are a visual confirmation that it is dead.  But the context which it is displayed in is interesting because it looks very organic like water.  And the gesture of the turtle mimics swimming.  This photogram conveys the line between life and death and how it can be fooled with in photography,

Mark Osterman: Lathe

I think this image is the strongest metaphor for time I have ever seen.  And time goes hand in hand with life and death.

Duane Michals: The dream of Flowers

Without the title I would have associated this image with death- and I still kind of do because of the surface the figure is resting on.  Who sleeps on a hard surface like that?  Either way the flowers that are fully bloomed definitely convey life and beauty .

Joel Peter Witkin: Corpus Medius

In this image Witkin objectifies death.  Direclty out on a table for us to see and relate to- the lower half of an average adult male.  Clearly about death and the brutality and gore associated with it.  However something about the lighting, the cloth and composition seems classical or related to the renaissance.  This to me makes me reflect on past life and how artists devoted their lives to studying the not always complete figure in the renaissance and other movements proir to and after.

Francesca Woodman: Untitled

Francesca Woodman’s work is dark, surreal, and sexual.  This image is dark and surreal, but not sexual.  It screams hell and feelings of being trapped through motion and the chaos of the composition.  But not hell in the sense of Dante’s Inferno- more like Hell on earth.  The setting is clearly a room, the glass enclosing is recognizable, and the form is clearly human.  This figures life has become hell.

Michael Flomen: Photogram 

Regardless of how dark and mysterious Flomen’s images are, he is an artist purely concerned with the life of nature.  He lets elements of nature take control of his composition to a certain point, like in this image.  A lightning bug is the light source walking over dirt- and although it is not recognizably a lightning bug it’s energy is clearly conveyed.  I admire Flomen for his ability to abstract something completely but still keep it’s essence and life in the image.  This image and all of Flomen’s images touch on life- but in a much different way than average nature photography.

Kunie Sugiera: Photogram

Sugiera deals with a concept referred to as here- not here, which is key to certain aspects of this project.  It defines a huge difference between photograph and photogram because a photograph of these flowers makes the flower seem tangeable to the viewer- on the contrary with a photogram it is less tangeable.  The flowers in Sugiera’s photograms are there but not there in their true form.  This relates to both heaven-hell and life-death.  Heaven and hell are either real or not, and we can find aspects of heaven and hell on earth whether they exist or not.   

L. Moholy Nagy: Dessau Photogram

Besides form, composition, and tone there is not too much to read into this photogram.  However these three aspects of the image depict a relationship between life and death, lightness and darkness, and beauty and the absence of beauty.  The wilting form of the flower cutting through the dark conveys a feeling of life or survival to me.  The form of the flower reminds me of a man or woman arching their back, but the form is so objectified it seems destroyed almost.  The tone not only makes the image better than just stark white and black but it also brings out a relationship between the flower’s beauty and the fact that the flower is not represented in it’s true beautiful form (here- not here).

Adam Fuss: From the series In Between

This represents the aspect of life that is inexplicable and unidentifiable.  Impossible to put a finger on- yet Fuss did a whole series on this topic of not birth or death but the In Between.  To him birth and death are clear- but life is just an period of time in between the birth and death.  This is an abstract view on life that is clearly portrayed in this cibachrome print.  The bird seems to standing and alive- but the vegetation seems to wilting and unhealthy, maybe dead.  Though there is a dark element to this print It conveys an aspect of life to me more so that death.  And that aspect is the ambiguity of life.

Hisae Imai: Open Air Creatures

A very erie, touchy, and emotion-provoking photograph.  From this image I get a strong sense of death- but in relation to life.  It seems as though her body is sinking into the ground becoming part of the soil under the leaves.  The image has a dreamy quality like Arthur Tress’s work, however there is more of a nightmare being portrayed here.  A child’s death gives nature life- disturbing but truthful and photographed very well.

Warren M. Hill: Compartmental Series

This image speaks to me in a way that relates to accepting death.  The two ghostly bodies on the side convey some kind of drowning or suicide, and the woman in the middle seems pretty calm and passive.  She seems at peace with what could possibly be her death.  I also think this photograph is a tribute or reference to another painting that deals with sacrifice to Gods.  Either way this image seems to be conveying a way out or a liberating experience through death.  

Kunie Sugiura-  All three of these photograms were made by the same artist however they touch on very different themes.  The all have similar compositional elements, but very different  whole compositions.  The flowers touch on a beauty theme becuase of the arrangement and choice of flowers.  The squids touch on a very different more organic sponaneous theme and they are beautiful in a different way than the flowers.  And the boxer is an action packed documentational image with a slightly humorous side.  I chose these three images becuase I wanted to convey the versatility of this artist.  Suguira uses the photogram technique but not always in a straight forward traditional way.  What I admire most is that she never stops exploring her medium or her subject matter- constant experimentation that brings positive and beautiful results. 

In comparison this is more of what I like from Flomen.  It is what drew me to research him in the first place and it is what is inspiring me to do more with my photograms.  This image was made with lightning bugs water some weeds or long grass and moonlight.  Very natural elements that I can imagine are very complex to work with.  It seems that Flomen has embraced his subject matter to the fullest letting nature have some control in the outcome of his photograph.

DcadPhoto 2

I chose this image by Michael Flomen because it is different from the ones that I am drawn to.  It has much more of a lunar landscape quality than a abstract quality and I don't like it as much but it still reels me in.  It is possible that this is too minimal for me but it is also possible that I just don't like the lunar aspect of it.  For whatever reason that the image rubs me wrongly I also like it simaltaneously.  

Under the Cover of Darkness, The work of Michael Flomen - La nuit est ma...

Dcad Photo 2

Micheal Flomen: Being-  All these photos are large gelatin prints from an artist who I found when looking through a gallery website.  I found a lot of the work interesting but these 3 photographs were especially striking.  What grabs my attention immediately is the chiarrascurro effect- the lights emerging from the dark.  Then abstract qualities definitely keep my maintain my attention becuase that is the type of art I am most interested in.  What is being depicted here is of no importance to me becuase of the quality and the beautiful shapes of light vs. the dark background.  Clearly Flomen doesn't settle with average print quality and I admire that a lot as well as his eye for abstraction.

Eclipse: Another Flomen gelatin print with very beautiful abstract organic shapes.  Although the lighting is not as ambiguous as the previous image it is still effective.  What works best in this photo is the tonal range and the composition.  Flomen works these two things together to bring out the abstract quality which is almost paradoxical becuase he is showing us the image very clearly but it unidentifyable. 

Contact:  More similar to the first one the lighting is very ambiguous and the chiarroschurro effect is very high.  Here it seems like Flomen gives us a little more of a landscape which seems to go with the title.  There is a very organic flow to the photo where your eye basically follows the lights in a curvy zigzag.  But the jaggedness contrasts the organicness and creates variety through the photo.  Overall I think these are 3 very succesful and mindblowing photographs.