Wing and Shell

 

As I walk the path to the place where I dump the waste from mucking out the pigeons, ducks and hens, in the woodland garden, I have noticed a daily  increase in cast off broken snail shells. No doubt the remnants of a hard earned meal of either a thrush or perhaps a blackbird. Small stable stones on the path used to bash the shells so breakfast can be gained.
Yesterday I found a wing along the path. Perhaps breakfast was cut short for some unlucky diner? No doubt one of my young cats, or maybe the local feral. Or even the blasted fox could have made quick work of the little bird.
Either way I felt a few photographs needed to be made.

Dorothy Cross, RHA

Our class went up to Dublin last Friday and were we went to the RHA to see the Dorothy Cross exhibit. She is by far one of my favourite artists. I am looking forward to her show in IMMA were I believe there will be more of her older works. You really cant beat seeing the works in person, Some photos of my favourite works are shown below.

'Following its debut at Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK, the RHA is delighted to present Connemara an exhibition of new and existing work by Dorothy Cross. Connemara has long been a destination for painters attempting to document the sea, sky, land and light. Connemara is also home to Dorothy Cross, and the source of inspiration for this new exhibition of her work. Cross’s sculpture, film and photography examine the relationship between living beings and the natural world around them, seeing both as sites of constant change, leaving residues of passing time, and strange and unexpected encounters.

Through major new commissions as well as existing works, the exhibition explores central themes in Cross’ practice, particularly the relationship between nature and the body, creation and destruction. Many of the artist’s works incorporate items found on the shore, including boats and animal skins, while others reflect on the environment. New videos will explore a cave near Cross’ home accessible only a few days a year, as well as Margate’s mysterious Shell Grotto.' -RHA

Two very excited artists!

A very serious discussion....(cough)

Artists Bio:

Born 1956 in Cork, Cross works in a variety of media including sculpture, photography, video and installation. She has been exhibiting regularly since the mid-80s and her witty and inventive investigations of contemporary sexual mores and politics tend to be produced in series. Her first major solo shows were Ebb, at the Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin, in 1988, and Powerhouse at the ICA, Philadelphia, the Hyde Gallery and Camden Arts Centre, London, in 1991. During the 90's she produced two extended series of sculptural works, using cured cowhide and stuffed snakes respectively, which drew on these animals' rich store of symbolic associations across cultures to investigate the construction of sexuality and subjectivity. Over the past few years Cross has devoted increasing amounts of time to the development of large-scale public events and projects, most memorably the award-winning Ghost Ship, an ethereally illuminated light-ship, which haunted Dublin Bay for a few weeks in 1999.
Cross has participated in numerous group shows internationally including, the Venice Biennale, 1993, the Istanbul Biennial, 1997 and the Liverpool Biennial, 1998 and 2002. She also took part in the ground-breaking 1994 exhibition Bad Girls in the ICA London and CCA, Glasgow; Mirror Images: Women, Surrealism and Self Representation, MIT List Art Center, Boston, Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami and the San Francisco MOMA, 1998; Skin at the Cranbrook Museum, Michigan, USA, 1999-2000 and a duck for Mr. Darwin, Baltic Arts center, UK, 2009. A major retrospective of Dorothy Cross’s work took place at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin in 2005.
More recently, Cross has had solo exhibitions at Bloomberg Space, London, 2009, Wolverhamton City Gallery, 2008, McMullen Museum Boston College USA, 2005, Frith Street Gallery, London, 2011 and Kerlin Gallery, 2007. Her work is included in the collections of the Irish Museum of Modern Art, the Norton Collection, Santa Monica, Art Pace Foundation, Texas, Ulster Museum, Belfast, the Goldman Sachs Collection, London The Arnolfini Trust, Bristol, Hugh lane Gallery, Dublin, London and the Tate Modern, London, among others. Dorothy Cross is represented by the Kerlin Gallery, Dublin.

Melanie Manchot

Came across this series by Melanie Manchot of her mother. I thought the on of her and her mother was interesting. This work also ties with th vanitas theme.
In the book she states that,
'By looking at my mothers ageing body, I am also looking at my self, my own corporeality as well as my future. Ageing obviously affects us all but wokig with my mother, her body and very specific poces of ageing becomes a more personal invstegation including such notions as lineage, gntis, nd hereditiy.'

Look At You Loving Me, 2000, Unique Silver Gelatin Prints onto Canvas

From the web-site: One of Manchot’s earliest series of work, ‘Look at you loving me’ consists of large and small scale photographic works printed onto canvases using a photographic light sensitive emulsion. The surface of the printed canvas is then worked into with a variety of drawing materials such as chalk and charcoal. Both formally and conceptually, these works reference painterly media while firmly being rooted within the language of photography. Working with her mother over a period of four years, around 40 different unique works came into existence, charting both a very particular body, its expressions and gestures, and a relationship – that between mother and daughter, between model and photographer. Over those years, forms of participation and collaboration were initiated and explored to find methodologies that speak about portraiture as a project of relations.

 

Lucas Foglia

Lucas Fogila's series, 'A Natural Order,' is based on humans relationship with animals and nature. Again a lovely series of people living off the grid and on the fringes of society. I love the one of the girls in the water.

From the artist’s statement:
Lucas Foglia grew up with his extended family on a small farm in the suburbs of New York City. While malls and supermarkets developed around them, they heated their house with wood, farmed and canned their food, and bartered the plants they grew for everything from shoes to dental work. But while his family followed many of the principles of the back-to-the-land movement, by the time he was eighteen they owned three tractors, four cars, and five computers. This mixture of the modern world in their otherwise rustic life made him curious to see what a completely self-sufficient way of living might look like.
From 2006 through 2010, Foglia traveled throughout the southeastern United States befriending, photographing, and interviewing a network of people who left cities and suburbs to live off the grid. Motivated by environmental concerns, religious beliefs or the global economic recession, they chose to build their homes from local materials, obtain their water from nearby springs, and hunt, gather, or grow their own food.
All the people in Foglia’s photographs are working to maintain a self-sufficient lifestyle, but no one he found lives in complete isolation from the mainstream. Many have websites that they update using laptop computers, and cell phones that they charge on car batteries or solar panels. They do not wholly reject the modern world. Instead, they step away from it and choose the parts that they want to bring with them

Danila Tkachenko

Danila Tkachenko is a Russian photographer whose photo series Escape looks at the lives of Russian Hermits who are living on the fringe of society.

'I grew up in the heart of the city, but I've always been drawn to wildlife, for me its a place where I can hide and feel the real me, my true self, out of social context. I am concerned

 about the issue of internal freedom in the modern society: how feasible it is when you're surrounded by a social framework all the time? School, work, family - once in this cycle, you are a prisoner of your own position, and have to do what you're supposed to. You should be pragmatic and strong, or become an outcast or a lunatic. How to remain yourself in the midst of this? The main characters of my project violate social standards for different reasons. By a complete withdrawal from society they go live alone in the wild, gradually dissolving in it and losing their social identity. While exploring their experience, it is important for me to understand if one side is able to break free from social dependence and get away from the public to the subjective- and thus, to make a step towards oneself.'

Brian Taylor

Brian Taylor is a photographer who is known for his innovative explorations of alternative photographic processes including historic 19th Century printing techniques, mixed media, and hand made books.
For his series, 'Open Book,' he creates illustrated books springing from a fascination with the book format and a love of texture in art. His imagery is inspired by the surreal and poetic moments of living in our fast-paced, modern world.
These hard cover books are hand bound with marbleized paper and displayed fully opened to a photographically illustrated two-page folio spread. Each book is framed in a wooden shadowbox and presented as a wall piece.

 

Poems and Images Series

'Photographers believe a picture is worth a thousand words, while poets hope the right word is worth a thousand pictures. Photographers labor over scenes while poets labor over syllables. I’ve poured over my images for years, coaxing each landscape and still life to say more. Poetry can be the looking glass we hold up to magnify the spaces between photographs, helping explain why they happened.
Photography and poetry each have their strengths and limitations, yet both attempt to make order out of the tangled, myriad thoughts and events we encounter each day. Poetry allows me to break free of photography’s reliance upon realism; the luxury of words grants me the freedom to travel anywhere and convey whatever I imagine, without the need to stand before an actual subject.' -Brian Taylor

From, The Art of Getting Lost

Tim Walker

I have always been aware of Tim Walker, but have only recently added him to my contextual. He is a wonderful photographer who is best known for his fashion spreads in Vogue. He uses traditional film photography which is rear nowadays. I assume he uses slide film as his colours are so vibrant and beautiful. Luckily my college library have his book, 'Pictures,' which has brilliant photos and also pages from his sketchbook. It is wonderful to see inside the mind of someone so great.