Artist statement

 

Negotiated final major project

Artist statement

For my negotiated final major project I have created a series of six final images based around the theme of memory boxes.  I have explored the traditional physical attributes that make a memory box and contrasted them with digitalised memory timelines that are becoming more common due to the popularity of online social media platforms such as Facebook and twitter. I have conducted a vast amount of research on my online blogger looking into different subject areas with in my theme. I have looked at physical possessions, the family photo album, photographers who have deal with similar themes and theory’s by different sources such as the affect theory and Schrodinger’s cat.

My final edit of six images which concentrates solely on the physical memory box are faceless portraits of the female close members in my family (including myself), photographed holding or connected with their personal memory boxes. My greatest visual inspiration for my final series was William Eggleston, an American photographer known for his colour photography and his ability to turn everyday mundane subjects into art photography. Eggleston was a pivotal point in art photography as he was one of the first people to deal with colour. Around the time when Ansel Adams was at huge interest in the art world with his large format black and white landscapes William Eggleston was complete contrast with his everyday subject themes printed in vivid colour. My images almost have a snapshot aesthetic I wanted the images to be real life, no fancy edits, no complex lighting just capturing the real, everyday very much like Eggleston’s work.

Each image is titled with the subject’s date of birth so they are left anonymous to the public.  In Roland bathes camera Lucida he talks in great detail about the winter Gardens photograph of his mother as a child and the affect this individual image has on him yet he never reveals the images for the reader to view.  This is because if we are to view the image or not it still wouldn’t have the same affect it has on him , we don’t know her therefore it’s just another face , it’s not filled with sentiment or memory’s to us. This is why I have kept my family anonymous and faceless .

On viewing my blog you will see that I have spent time researching into the family photo album and also photographers would work with this theme. I am interested in a non-stereotypical family photo album and this is another reason why I have done faceless portraits. I have purposely tried to achieve an un-stereotypical family album photograph and this I feel I have excelled at. In Gillian Rose’s book doing family photography, the domestic, the public and politics of sentiment she interviews and observed a collection of women’s family photo albums. The albums were quoted by the women themselves as “samey” and “done before” expressing the fact that they have all tried to capture the same sorts of shots, sunshine and smiles but in my series which is technically a family series I have avoided “smiles” by naming them anonymous.

Another huge influence in the creating of my final pieces is the Schrodinger’s cat quantum physic theory and particularly the state of super position. I have linked the concepts of Schrodinger’s cat directly to the memory box .Like the cat the contents of a memory box is either dead or alive .The individual possessions in somebody's memory box generally have no "Affect"(Affect Theory) on other viewers , same with family photo albums , unless you know the people photographed or in a memory boxes case the memory collected they can all be very "samey" and will not provoke sentiment, Dead cat .On the other hand the box could do the complete opposite and be a  reinforcement of memory ,be nostalgic and have copious amounts of "affect" on the viewer, Alive cat .In this state of superposition my viewers can only be intrigued as to what substances are in or not in the box. I have purposely not shown my audience the contents of the memory boxes ( in some cases the box has no lid so was unavoidable) just the container itself. As I have mentioned above next to the images sits a framed contents list written by the owner of the box to add a personal twist to each image, I want the audience of my images to make their own interpretations to the contents of the boxes and its owner. Not allowing the box to be open and contents relieved means we do not have to force upon a decision the memory are there forever frozen times in my frames. Curiosity literally could kills the cat or in this instance the private memory. A message about my earlier research on how digitalising you family photo albums or memory boxes devalues there "affect" some things should remain private.

Finally what I feel really works about this series of purposely every day , true to life images is  the personal quirky details captured in each image. For example my nans cow print slippers and the tips of my long red hair matching my painted figure nails each image has its own personal twist. My mother’s dark sensible clothing contrasted with her bright orange tiger socks or the similar patterns in my sisters t-shirt and cushion in the background are all intentional to help the viewer connect with the anonymous portraits.