Pictures of my installation for the Senior Winter Art Show. The show was on the 9th, but unfortunately I will have to take it down on Monday because the term is ending. I had a really amazing time working on it and am very pleased with the results (which never happens). And for an added bonus: someone is going to buy a couple of prints! If I ever get around to it I may post the original images.
My artist statement:
Films document characters, narratives, and movement. One concept my project stemmed from was photographing an image to look as though it were a moment from a film. In doing so I sought to suggest details of a specific moment within a larger story, but allow the viewer imagine what else was occurring that was not captured by the limited perspective of the camera. When I began my project I was drawn to the idea of merging of cinematography with self-portraiture. By drawing upon cinematography as an inspiration for self-portraiture, I was able to portray someone other than myself (even if only in subtle ways) in a fictional context.
I chose film photography (instead of digital) as my medium for two reasons. The first is that I prefer the quality film lends to photographs and felt it would benefit the style of my images. The second is that I was primarily influenced by my favorite eras in movies, when film was used exclusively. In my photographs I used no props, wore no makeup, and photographed against a plain background. I chose this simplicity because I hoped that doing so would allow the viewer to focus on the expression portrayed or the position of the subject with few distractions. I also experimented with movement to underscore the cinematographic and fixed moment in time quality that I hoped to portray in these portraits. My intention with this project was to provide room for interpretation of a narrative and to encourage the viewer to create the context.
