University Campus Suffolk

Lately I have been reading alot of blogs. Blogs from America mostly, where people go around places and ask people random questions. sometimes they will ask about aspects of their life, or their hardest struggle, or biggest pain, and other times they will just listen to people and their memories or general wonderings. These blogs fascinate me, and i thought to really bring my images to life i could ask the poeple in them ( my family) similar questions that cangive the viewer a better understanding, and perhaps even a chance to relate to these lives that are not important to them but are everything to me.

Each member of my family is most definatley outspoken with a few quirks, each having their own story. Here are some of the information i gathered to potenially add to the images of them.

Mum

-‘If you could give any piece of advice to a large group of teenagers what would it be?’

‘Don’t do drugs’

‘Why?’

‘Becuase I can’t think of anything else to say.’

-‘Tell me something’

‘I don’t know’

‘It can be anything’

‘I like hot weather, I like it hot. I like the colour yellow.’

-‘What are your thoughts on growing old?’

‘No. It’s terrible, lets just out it this way I am all fro euthanasia Sophie, thankyou very much.’

Lucy

-‘What was the happiest moment in your life?’

‘Having my children.’

‘What was the hardest part of that?’

‘C-section. Ew, I could feel them tugging and stiching me up, pushing verything back in.’

-‘What makes you laugh the most?’

‘My mum, oh yeah, she is tapped. I remember the time i made her so angry she had a fag after wuitting for like years, oh man it was just so funny, just the way she does things, i mean that doesn’t sound funny but hell it was. She’s the smartest person I know but dear God she is tapped.’

I am awaiting to speak to my dad and brother yet I’m am sure I can get some interesting material from them.

I am also going to develope this idea, present the passport image and text beside it, I think this can progress alot, epsecially as I think it would make the images come to life.

Like most people whenever im bored and have a newspaper or magazine to hand I find images of people and doodle other them, which I have done with some more of my passport images. It brings an element of wonder and fun. I think it can also perhaps bring out the personality of the person in the image. I began just doodling simple things, for instance this image of my sister when she was a child, i have given her big bunny ears and in another a big top hat like the mad hatter.

These works reminded me of some of Arnulf Rainer’s work where he used images of people and famously painted over them. His however being in more of a dark sense and more nightmarish.

I began doodling and drawing over my passport images, and found myself like some of my previous work from a while ago taking the eyes out of the image. Thus making the image go from a standard clear portrait with personality coming through, to becoming creepy and quite chilling. It’s interesting to me that such a transformation can come from just taking the eyes out of the picture, but as i mentioned in an earlier post ‘the eyes are the door to the soul’, and in this piece it becomes true.

To me these images are very effective and I can see myself progressing with it, however with taking the eyes out of the image it totally changes the viewer’s perspective. I would like the viewer to look at the eyes of my family members, because then it becomes more personal and that is what my work is about.

This first image is one I am rather fond of, I’m thinking about blowing them up to a larger scale with the outside images in black and white as the are origionaly anyway being that they are from the late 1970’s, and having the middle image in colour as the contrast would be engaging. Also I thought the simplicity to the positioning (me in the middle and my parents either side) was rather compelling in itself.

The second image was a quick idea that I think works really well, this is something I would also like to take further. It reminds me of the kings and queens on playing cards. It seems to me that it acts as a parallel world, a different dimension this really compells me.