What is a Portrait

 

SURFACE

“Everything is Surface” – Andy Warhol

Stylish but Blank!

Andy Warhol’s screen print of Marilyn is purely surface. The images were often sourced from newspapers or press shots. They were impersonal and said nothing about the subject. But knowing the history and background of Marilyn we can read between the lines and give our own interpretation to the image.

With this screen print the images are fading out gradually to nothing. This could be interpreted as Marilyn’s fame slowly fading out of peoples memories since her death. This could also be the case for Elvis.

This image of Jackie Kennedy before and after her husband’s death could be considered to have a deeper meaning, showing the emotional strain of losing a loved one through the media’s unsympathetic camera lens.

Not Portraiture in any traditional sense.

Like Warhol Gerhard Richter uses photos from the mass media. Richter projected the images onto walls and hand painted the projected image.   Both Richter and Warhol spoke of the importance of surfaces, the lack of depth and the equality of various subject matter.

 Richter blurs his paintings .

“I blur things to make everything equally important and everything equally unimportant”.

Cindy Sherman creates a mask for herself, she dresses up in wigs and clothing to transform herself into characters.

These images aren’t self-portraits in the classic sense.

EXPOSED

 Photographer Nan Goldin captures her life, she captures the good the bad and the ugly. She shows everything to the viewer in her work. Many of the people in her images died of drug overdoses or aids. Goldin showed over 700 photographs at the Mudd Club and various art galleries.

Tracey Emin’s work also puts herself on display, both hers and Goldins work blurs the lines between what should be public and private.

SCIENCE

Gary Schneider creates ‘Genetic Self Portraits’ with handprints, photographs of his irises, parts of his DNA sequences, x-rays and microscopic images of his own hair.

All of these artists challenge the idea of what a portrait is.

And I think it is impossible to fully define what a  true portrait is.

Yorkshire Tea Landscape

For the YCN graphics project Yorkshire tea would like to promote itself to a younger target market by re-imagining their product, concept or design.

When I see Yorkshire tea packaging the landscape make me feel at home, relaxed and calm. It gives off a sense of tradition and old fashioned values.  I think it could be the old fashioned feel that is preventing the younger buyers, but also I can’t completely over look the loyal older buyers. Hmmm.

Attitudes to Landscapes

Many if not most of the preconceived ideas we have of landscapes come from either the  Greek and Roman classical view or the 18^th centuries Romantic attitudes and movement.

When we view landscape we automatically build up our own view of what that landscape is like either playing to the classical or romantic ideas or our own experiences.

Wilderness

Michael Raedecker
Beam – 2000

Titian Saint Jerome in the Desert – c.1570-1575

Classical:  Beyond civilization, a place to be feared, untamed man, mountains, forests, deserts, seas, witches, thieves, savages, the devil.

Romantic: A pure place untouched by human hands, an earthy paradise, spiritual, hermits, outdoor adventures, artists, noble savages.

Countryside 

Wheat field with reaper and sun Van Gogh 1889

Classical: Owned and tamed wilderness, work, farming, boundaries, hedges, walls, uneducated, simpletons, gossiping villagers, incest, migrant workers, muddy, smells.

Romantic: A place of honest work, working in harmony with nature, pastoral idyll, milk maids , squires, farmers, a place to retreat to.

City

Georgia O’Keeffe -New York City paintings

Jeff Wall – Odradek 1994

 

Classical:  A centre of civilization, a place of progress, education, employment, law and order, culture, government, affluent people, educated, cultured, civilized, Utopian.

Romantic:,   A place of disease, dirt, over populated, crime, fear,  noise, smells, disorder, crime, ghettos, corrupt, powerless, ill, unemployed, homeless, gangs, dystopian.

Suburbia

Gregory Crewdson – Twilight Series

The Simpsons

Classical: Success, money, normality, ideal life, wife 3 kids and a dog, matching, clean, middle class.

Romantic: Cookie cutter houses, sterile environment , two faced, clicks, weird, strange, confined, dull.