Emma^11
Month: February 2018
Jason Salavon
Jason Salavon is an artist based out of Chicago, who works with reconfigured material to make familiar looking work but with a new perspective. His work has received numerous awards and has been featured in exhibitions consistently for the past twenty five years. In some of his work, he will take hundreds of photos and combine them using software that he’s written to color average the photo to give it a blurred look. One of his most extensive projects has been working on making amalgamated videos from all episodes from The Simpsons series.
His work is exceptionally different from that of the other artists that we’ve looked at thus far. Although it is all still digitally created, it seems to have roots in collages which is fun. One of my favorite pieces of his is ‘Good and Evil’ from 2012. This piece has a side by side comparison of photos that are based on the 100 most popular words associated with good and evil. It was surprising to me because the overall colors of the panels didn’t have a stark contrast in colors and typically evil is associated with darker shades while good is associated with bright colors like yellows, blues, etc. I really loved how in some of his other pieces, Kids with Santa for example, he utilizes 100 photos from the internet to then create one photo that is familiar to everyone.
This last image is especially interesting to me because Salavon does a fantastic job at taking what one would think to be boring statistical information and making it into exciting images.
http://salavon.com/
http://www.markmoorefineart.com/exhibitions/jason-salavon3?view=slider#11
http://www.mocp.org/collection/mpp/past/salavon_jason.php
https://www.instagram.com/jasonsalavonstudio/
Kelli Connell
Kelli Connell is exceptionally well known for her work with multiple self portraits called ‘Double Life’ where she appears multiple times within one image. With these images, she hopes to convey believable situations about a couple and their interactions. These depictions are based off of her own life as well as situations that she has witnessed throughout her life. These images provide a visual of questioned gender roles, identity, how one views the self, and more. In an interview with Photo-Eye blog, Connell mentions that one of her early inspirations was Francesca Woodman. Like Woodman, Connell tries to project herself and her personality through these images despite using a stand-in model.
Each of the images that she’s created seem so ordinary and simple which is what’s so intriguing about them. Her subtle changes from one person to the next add so much to the image and the story at hand. She has a very tasteful use of props, costuming and lighting that are relatable to a wide audience.
http://kelliconnell.com/
http://blog.photoeye.com/2012/06/interviews-kelli-connell-on-double-life.html
http://www.mocp.org/collection/mpp/connell_kelli.php
https://www.kopeikingallery.com/artists/kelli-connell-1#images-artist-object-46-
Rashaad Newsome
Rashaad Newsome is a multidisciplinary artist who works with video, collage, computer programming and several other mediums. He has works featured in galleries and museums all throughout the country, and had received several honors and awards for his pieces. Frequently, he will partner with companies and create dynamic, exciting videos to advertise their product. He also does incredibly interesting collages which were my personal favorite. In each of his pieces, you can see the influence that growing up in New Orleans has on his work.
His work is so different from any other artist that I’ve encountered. It’s so much more excessive and dramatic than most art that I tend to look at. Not only are the pieces that he creates exciting and filled with flair, they also have custom frames that are equally as excessive and dramatic that are essentially another piece of art framing more art. Sometimes, they’re even printed and wrapped onto a car. Who knew!
https://www.debuckgallery.com/artists/rashaad-newsome/
One Tool
For this assignment, we were to create a new image, or use a preexisting image as a starting point to learn the all of the ways that you could use the tools available on Photoshop.
The first image was done using the paint brush tool. Originally, the image was extremely vibrant with it’s colors. With the paint brush tool, I was able to create a mask so that the focal point was the parrot itself.
I’m from Roanoke, VA which is surrounded by the Blue Ridge Mountains. One of the most popular things to do in the area is to go hiking, Mcafee’s Knob is one of the more popular hikes along the Appalachian Trail. For this image, I played around with the saturation/desaturation tool. Within that tool, there were numerous different paint brush styles that could be used, the flow percentage could be changed and you could switch back and forth between saturate and desaturate within the tool. This one turned out in a neat way, because it played off of the preexisting shadows in the picture. The edited version also resembles a heat map due to the different levels of saturation in the photo.
Cory Archangel
Archangel was born in NY and is currently living in Norway and commuting back and forth to NY. He majored in music technology and also has some background in coding. Most of his art is technology-based as well as available online. One of the things that he is most well-known for is his work with the Super Mario Clouds. Here, he tweaked the game so that only the clouds would appear as the background. He’s also done a decent portion of his work using Photoshop and frequently uses the gradient tool.
Of his pieces, I really liked these three:
The first was made using the gradient tool on photoshop and the simplicity of the image appealed to me. The second image was fun to look at because it was only lines drawn on paper but the final product almost has a three dimensional effect. This last image was made in Photoshop using the gradient and smudge tool. After learning about what each of the tools did, I found it interesting to see how he chose to combine the usage of tools and how vibrant the colors were.
“Photoshop Gradient and Smudge Tool Demonstration”
https://www.lissongallery.com/artists/cory-arcangel
https://twitter.com/cory_arcangel?lang=en
http://www.coryarcangel.com/