PORTFOLIO

My name is Dash Maxwell and I am a fourth year student studying Fine Arts at the University of British Columbia. Prior to studying Fine Arts, I studied History with a focus in midcentury conflict at the University of Victoria, British Columbia. My practice is predominantly photography based, however, I have worked in printmaking, sculpture and video. Similar to the aura that is radiated by an original work of art according to Walter Benjamin, I believe that a succinctly designed structure can have profound impact on those around it. The built environment has an immediate, tactile effect on those who navigate it. It is my goal in the architecture program to develop an understanding of this effect, and to obtain the tools that will allow me to implement it within the community.

Thank you for considering my portfolio.

Big Nudes

I wanted to utilize the technical and conceptual skills learned in the Fine Arts program to make a photographic series which critically explored historic and contemporary notions of beauty. The project was a self directed study supervised by Professor Barrie Jones, and my goal was to have several exhibition ready works by the end of the course.

This series was to be composed of several large scale (life sized) nude portraits of women and men, posed in reference to Helmut Newton’s Big Nudes from 1980. However, due to framing costs, they were printed at 11.75” x 20.5”.

By framing the photographs between two panes similar to a microscope slide, the photographs are presented as specimens. It is not just the beauty standards of today, and yesterday that are under the microscope, but also how those standards are found in art and media. It is not the women and men which are framed, but the photograph. By posing an eclectic group of models based on Helmut Newton’s Big Nudes, my photographic series is linked to previous art photography, and in doing so bring notions of beauty in art history, particularly the nude, into discussion. My goal isn’t to project my opinions regarding beauty, but to create a work which instigates that very conversation with the audience. I want those who see these photographs to reflect on their own notions of beauty and their perceived source within the art object.

The photographs were shot on film, and installed in acrylic frames designed by myself.

I plan to continue to expand this series in the future.