Thursday, May 9, 2019

Lucie Blissett



'Self Portraits of My Gendered Objects,' is a series developed during writing my dissertation this year. The photographs are examining my own material culture. The belongings I own display my female gender through colour, texture, and the relation it has to society's expectations of gender roles. The color pink represents the feminine. Each photograph shows my own objects taken from my home and placed in a studio environment. The investigation is to question how femininity is seen in our contemporary society and how it still hasn't changed. 

Source link here.

Vivian Maier

Maier’s massive body of work would come to light when in 2007 her work was discovered at a local thrift auction house on Chicago’s Northwest Side. From there, it would eventually impact the world over and change the life of the man who championed her work and brought it to the public eye, John Maloof.

Our class assignment asks that you do not include yourself (or another person) in your self-portrait. The examples below, although include the artist, can offer inspiration for the class assignment. 

I encourage you to learn more about Vivian Maier. Website link below. Also, you can find a documentary on Vivian Maier. Her story offers wonderful insight to how each of us perceive the world around us. 

Website:

Documentary:
Was streaming on Netflix








Vivian Maier (February 1, 1926 – April 21, 2009) was an American street photographer born in New York City. Although born in the U.S., it was in France that Maier spent most of her youth. Maier returned to the U.S. in 1951 where she took up work as a nanny and care-giver for the rest of her life. In her leisure however, Maier had begun to venture into the art of photography. Consistently taking photos over the course of five decades, she would ultimately leave over 100,000 negatives, most of them shot in Chicago and New York City. Vivian would further indulge in her passionate devotion to documenting the world around her through homemade films, recordings and collections, assembling one of the most fascinating windows into American life in the second half of the twentieth century.


Michael Farrell




Wing Man,” with a column topped by an airplane atop the box, is something of a self-portrait, rooted in the notion that a TV producer works behind the scenes helping others. It's anchored by a shovel that had belonged to his grandfather.

“During the past 15 years since I last exhibited a significant amount of this type of work, I’ve been using these old wooden boxes and objects as arenas in which to confront the complex emotions, self-judgments, remorseful thoughts, tender moments, hopes for the future and grief over a life that no longer is and yet continues and evolves into something new and unknown as long as breath remains." 

Link here to read more about this artist. 

Pedro Hidalgo

Pedro Hidalgo, a Cuban blind photographer uses still objects used in daily life to narrate the story of his life.






“The shoe at the bottom going all the way up to the top of the head with the hat is a representation of my life. I have the self-portrait moving up the stairs, which for me is symbolic of growth. The self-portrait begins at childhood and moving up from the bottom are small baby shoes. This represents my childhood growing up in Cuba as I did. Always had my visual disability from birth, and as you move up the stairs you see all the different objects, the cameras, the glasses, magnifying glass that have been crucial in my life and my growth. Cameras have always been a way for me to see. It has always helped me to view the world and to be able to capture the world so I could see it better. The drum and the music, the cigar-smoking figurine there indicates the culture that I come from, from Cuba. I grew up during the Cuban Revolution and this was a difficult time there. The photograph of the eyeball signifies war, as you see inside there is a soldier, the saint with the rosary beads signifies my background also, but also talks about the meaning of spirituality for me today. It has been an integral part of my growth as a person and as an artist.”

Frida Kahlo, Self-Portraits

ArtistFrida Kahlo
Year1938
TypeOil on canvas
Dimensions91 cm × 70.5 cm (36 in × 27.75 in)
LocationCollection of Daniel FilipacchiParis
Learn about this image. 



Frida Kahlo's Bathroom
Source link Caravan Magazine.