Growth & Evolution Sophie Karin Clark Unit 4 Exam
Inspirational artists Andy Lock Greg Sand
Christian Boltanski faces
Doug and Mike Starn
Joel-Peter Whitkin
Carolie Benitah
‘’These photographs were taken 40 years earlier, and I could not even remember the moments they were shot, nor what preceded or followed those moments’’. Embroidery is primarily a feminine activity. In the past, the embroiderer was seen as a paragon of virtue. Waiting was tried to this activity; women embroidered, hoping for the return of the man to the home, ‘Embroidery is intimately linked to the milieu in which I grew up. Girls in a good family used to learn how to sew and embroider – essential activities for perfect women’’. The lost connection with a photograph shows how time has moved on and remains a mystery. The colour red symbolised blood links, the connections between family that are always there no matter how long time goes on. The photograph that shows a red hood and a wolf symbolise the story of red riding hood, being lost without any direction, unknown of the dangers of the outside world. The fact the hood is on a baby portrays how the baby is full of purity but with time will been known to the dangers of the outside world. Tangibility means something we can hold onto, beetles represent this and in one of pieces surround the artist herself at a young age and her sister, showing how she wants to hold onto her memories.
Christian Boltanski shows the shocking reality of the past. His work portrays the faces of Jewish schoolchildren taken in Vienna in 1931, serve as a forceful reminder of the mass murder of Jews by the Nazis. Boltanskis work that followed, such as Reserve Boltanski filled whole rooms and corridors with items of worn clothing as a way of prompting an involuntary association with the clothing depots at concentration camps. The faces of children are faces of innocence, colliding with the sinister past that once happened. Even though this tainted past is known, it has never been so graphic. The use of children reinforces how vulnerable these children were and how there was no one to fight their corner, only the unknown. The use on contrast of black and white is a harsh emphasis on the purity meeting the sinister. Boltanski’s work ‘reserve’, shows a variety of colours of neatly piled up clothes, without the photographs of the children in the shadows of the work, they are just pieces of fabric. However, putting the faces of innocent children in the background the clothes become dainty pieces of fabric and the echo's of fragile minds.
Christian Boltanski Faces and Reserve
Greg Sand
Greg Sand produces eerie work that hides the identity of human beings, if the face is not shown how can we trust a face? Their body language and their emotions concealed from the naked eye. The dull colours used show the emotions of the photography, showing something more sinister is in the mist. The transparency they present are almost as if they are ghostly figures, visiting back to their pasts.
‘Helga’, is the name that belongs to a women who I have never met but we share the same blood. All the way in another country her lifestyle is unknown to me and her language. The only images I have of her was taken in the late 1940’s and are all that remains of her. Technically she is an aunt to me but I only see her as this girl with pig tails and socks. I never had the chance to met my granddad and hear the story's of his previous life in another country. Life changed completely when world war two was announced.
Development
This photo was taken in 1945 in England during the war. The only familiar face to me is my granddad, whom I never met but have heard a great deal about. The writing laying behind the image portrays a letter written to ‘Karl-Heinz Dohrn during the second world war, the subject of it is unknown.
Even though I have their blood running through my veins I don’t know what their voice sounds like or what they look like now. The words underneath is from a German children's book, without images I can not translate what the words mean. The image here is of my grandmother, who I met and know what personality she had but the life she lived at a young age remains something I may never find out, just as I may never find out ‘ Helgas’, height. Their existence only is known to me through photos or stories I have been told. Their faces tell me only of their emotions at one moment of time. The book pages that lay underneath are the only thing of my granddad who tells me a little part about him.
Outcomes A stranger is someone whose face is not recognisable to your eyes. Without hearing the voice of a person or seeing their body language, their face becomes invisible. The writing behind the image presents a letter to my granddad who was the father of Helga, which is the closes connection I have to her. The letter is written in German language, making it unreadable to me. Even though I have this photo of her, time has passed and she would not be this girl with plaits in her hair.
Flatford Mill drawings done ten years ago.
Development
Flatford Mill is a place I have been visiting myself since a young age, without knowing my granddad lived very close by and regularly visited. These links I have to my blood have been lost by time. When I was young it was the place I did my first still life drawings. Flatford mill is a historic places that has had many footsteps walk along the paths that lead there.
Outcomes
Andy Lock shows the shadows that blanket the furniture that was lost to time. The colours used highlight the contrast between the inevitable shadows and the longing light craving for a purpose. The chair and bed that has been left behind within the four walls and surrounded by cold air.
Andy Lock
Valentines House
doug and mike starn
Doug and Mike Starn’s work portrays how fragile life is by presenting butterflies who have a short life and showing the damaged paper. The rough edges symbolise how life gradually cracks and chips.
Joel-Peter Whitkin
Joel-Peter Whitkin creates very shocking work, even using real human parts within his work. The most shocking part about his work isn’t that he uses real human parts but the fact the features on the surface of the skin are shown in detail, not just the internal organs. By showing these facial features, it emphasises the fact he presents dead human parts. The lifeless skin that has wilted and the eyes that will not open. He shows the body parts as though they was part of a still life, attempting the disguise the sinister with something as innocent as a bunch of grapes. However, items such as a clock symbolise how time doesn’t stand still, everything slowly runs out and leaving it useless.
Developm ent
Butterflies live very short lives and their beauty is only upon us for a limited amount of time. Just like this a buildings history is weakened by time and age, becoming more fragile.
Growth and evolution can be defined in many different varieties, however turning the definition on its head is to reverse time, back to the basics. I researched back to the history of my family and places that link to me. For the first set of photos I founds some photos taken in Germany, about my granddads first life he had before the seconds world war. He had a daughter before my mother, whom he never had contact with after the war. Due to this we have never spoke to her or know anything apart from the photos taken of her. Even though I though she is my mothers half sister we do not have any kind of relation with her. The only things we have from my granddads past life is, some photos of him and his previous family and also a German book given to my mother at a young age with children's poems. Just like the German language, it is unknown just like his young life. With the photos of his daughter and himself I took out the parts that suggest any kind of body language or emotion. This takes out any links the audience has by the emotions in the face. I used pages of a German book that’s is 60 years old and letters sent to my granddad during the war. For the second set of photos I visited a place called Flatford Mill built in 1733, I had visited there as a young girl for many years and found out that my granddad had lived nearby and visited regularly. When I was about 8 or 9 years old I visited there on a school trip and sketched some of the buildings without knowing I had family links. For the development I collected some old books I found in charity shops abut fishing. Flatford Mill is also a place known for its fishing. The English witting within the book pages suggest a scene of knowing and discovering.
Outcomes
Set three photographs I visited a small oasis in the middle of Ilford town, Valentines House. Valentines House is a place of nature and history as it was built in 1696. At the same age my mother visited the park that surrounds the house and lived nearby. The minuscule link that joins me to Valentine House tells me more about my family history. I used dead butterflies and flower pressed petals and leave within my development. They represent how time can pause in the middle of the present time. These butterflies could be either a month since they had died or years, butterflies are fragile and smooth when they are alive but after their death turn crusty. The flower pressed petals show also how time can be paused, however turns very delicate.
Feijen searches for places that are lost gems, lost to time. The haunting last echoes left inside the corridors of a building that has not been used for its purpose and now left abandoned. Nature has buried these buildings alive, only leaving natural light to show the dust that has settle amongst this graveyard of unknown memories. The contrast of the natural light and the unknown darkness in the shadows is just like a living being who has been left without hope but even so continues living.
Niki Feijen
Jean Judd
The decaying rust rippling through the corset adds a sense of aging and how time has moved on. Corsets were used on women to make their figures into the perfect body, even if that meant harming the women. The corsets would be tightened so much after time it would change the women's organs such as lungs so it would be hard for her to breath. The corset was a prison for an innocent female.
Anna Nowicki
Emma Parker
Work produced in the exam
In 1936 St. Georges hospital was built but it was not until 1938 that it was opened as an old peoples home. During the second world war it housed airmen from RAF Hornchurch.
Initial
Final Outcomes
Outcomes
Final Outcomes
Overall, I believe that my project did what I intended which was to show the life of an abandoned building and the ghosts that walk them. The hospital had many people walking along the floors through out the years and now suddenly there is only the silent whisper of the past, like hand painted wall that children painted which would now be adults or the glasses buried in the dirt left for the earth, which would have been worn by a women. These memories are fading rapidly and only a glimpse can been seen now through the key holes. If I had to do anything to change my project it would be to try and find out more about the lost memories made that are left inside the hospital made by sick patience.