Medium Specificity

Hidden Beauty 

Artist Statement:

      Photography is meant be untouched and unprocessed. Even though today we have so many ways that we are able to positively alter our pictures with filters and and photoshop, Polaroids are different. They are basic images that emphasis the honesty in photography.  The whole idea of taking a picture, is you have the capability of capturing a moment in time.  I thought that if I could change a picture after it’s taken, in an artistic way, then it can be noticed as something abstract rather than something basic. I wanted to prove how a moment that is still and plain can be given an illusion of texture and color. I used my Polaroid Camera 300 to take 4 ordinary stills of a girl. Just as the image began to show, I went over them and drew harsh lines and circles. I also  When the picture finally developed, the lines dramatically popped and they smeared the hidden colors within the Polaroid. I wanted to explore the different ways these pictures could be manipulated. To see if the emotion and reaction of the still image is altered. So I created a whole new image out of an existing image. 

Scott McCloud uses the medium of comic books, to explain the importance of comic books. He goes onto convince his readers of how his creation that mocks the itself ultimately becomes an art. So I wanted to be able to show that something as simple as a polaroid can be made into an separate art that obtains a whole different style. I look at the polaroids when they are fully developed, and I find myself distracted by the lines and colors, more than the girl herself. I felt that my art shared McCloud’s choice of emphasis in where it slightly mocks the choice of taking a still photo and giving it a whole new message. 
Andy Warhol used Elvis as subject matter, for his “Eight Elvis's” Silkscreen creation. He almost enjoyed seeing a form of simplicity and using it as motivation to adapt it into something complex. I too liked using the uncomplicated tactics in the medium of my photography to encourage my wonder of how it can be transformed into something more iconic and intriguing. Unlike Warhol and his distortion of the characters he chose to wield, I wanted to encourage the the lack of color and action. The lines that I drew out the internal colors of the photo. Warhol’s repetition in his silk screen, allowed him to extract action as well. I was motivated by his adaptation of Elvis, I used it to employ my photo’s with a whole new definition. 
I consider my medium specificity as a form of photo manipulation, in a way that both McCloud and Warhol achieved in theirs. One other artist that influenced my choice of transforming simplicity into mosaic is the photographer Christophe Gilbert. He believes in finding the small details in his photos and reconstructing them into his focal point. He does this by reshaping the paints and colors. I too saw that my photos lacked excitement. So I used a sharp point to extract texture. As I did this, more colors began to appear. Gilbert is known for his clever style, so I to demonstrated something that is not done commonly. My end product became more appealing to me.

I chose to explore the lack of texture in a still shot, by adding lines and circles that would give them an illusion of motion. I wanted the ink to spread through the lines, so more colors could also be presented. Overall I wanted to use these plain photos and convert them into interesting examples of abstract art that can be recognized by their texture and movement additions, rather than the the raw untouched photo it started out as.