An exploration of form and symmetry within the dialogue between found objects is the working practice of artist Stephanie Richardson. The photographic image in particular becomes a direct conference between existing and newfound imagery:
“My practice is framed by the engineering of curious or uneasy new evolutions of beings and events through simple interventions and incisions into found imagery, in which the indexical root becomes disfigured and stained with blemishes.
Fragments of annexed vintage photographs are isolated, mirrored or erased entirely in order to compose a series of despoiled tableaux. In recent works I have instigated a formal bleeding of the photographic texture of young girls, one into the other, in order to construct symmetrical and symbiotic patterns. I then use monochromatic acrylics to mottle the image, adding delicate hand-painted veining and employing lo-fi printing and folding processes, which function to dissolve the integrity of the original photograph.”
Richardson has just graduated from her BA in Painting at Edinburgh College of Art. She lives and works in Edinburgh.
nocturnalplayground.tumblr.com
Sarah Francis is studying her MFA in Fine Art at the University of Leeds. She uses photography to record sculptural happenings and approach elements of performance in her work:
Working within the medium of performance photography my art practice observes the idea of reality and representation; I am fascinated with the uncanny duality that photography brings as a medium and how the spectator integrates with the surface of the image. Show casing the photograph as not only an aesthetic object but also an object in itself translates a new world with the interaction of concepts, narrative and meaning.
All my work is set in a small village in North Wales where by I reinterpret the facts and fictions of my past, and explore the area around me. At first glance the images holds the sense of reality that photography demands as a medium although on closer inspection the secrets the images contain start to unfold, the reality within becomes confusing but playful. This often creates an anxious tension between the presence of representation and the absence of realism to create a clear state to envisage a new world.
Gathering and relocating particular events or reminiscence that were once lost, forgotten or left behind I rearrange and weave them together with traces of dreams, the spoken words of stories and re-evaluate to create my own landscapes for my own ideas to exist in. When people ask me why not just performance, or just sculpture I always response by saying: photography is important for my work, I like to control the gaze and capture a moment that is important to me.
sarahfrancis.gallereo.com
This blog is being used to spotlight student artists of all levels who deal with the photographic medium in their work, either in a broader or more direct sense. The idea is to promote and widen the acknowledgement of photography as a Fine Art practice. Many artists are using the idea itself as driving force for a conceptual approach to an interdisciplinary practice: documentation plays a large part within such methodologies and now photography is more ‘useable’ than ever, with camera phones and pocket sized compact digital cameras – it is more and more relevant to question what photography is.
Here we will be cross-referencing artist profiles with another blog on the World Photography Organisation website.
Two exposures if you will of a different artist’s approach to photography up to twice every month.
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