Saku Soukka

I found this work fascinating, and I am not all entirely sure. I wasn't going to pick Soukka because I didn't know why I was drawn to it, but I kept on going back to look again, so I finally decided to use his photos. His random use of color I think is stunning. The way he hides the face, even in the last one. We can see more of her, but we still get the sense that there is something to be hidden.

As we have talked about in past posts...why are there so many people working with distortion? I have been with my shower and now the underwater photos, then Monica with the foggy substance, and Chris with his contraption. What is our fascination with distorting a person or the things we see around us? There is obviously the same feeling everwhere. Soukka is working in Finland, and yet we here, are trying to accomplish I feel a similar thing by our distortion work. I think he creates such a chaos in his that we haven't felt in ours so much. I believe in my work, there is not so much a chaos, but almost a fluidity. At least that is what I am "trying" to accomplish as we near the end of this semester. I think I have struggled, and discovered quite a bit this semester...Struggled in a way that it has been hard for me to stay consistant when I shoot, but discovered because each time I shoot I see something new that intrigues me, and works in a large body of work. That makes me excited. I feel like I am going to continue to work with underwater work for awhile, trying different forms of camera to see what I can achieve. This is my work's distortion though...but what about Monica's and Chris's. Are you making it with the intention that someone feel something from it, and that in the end you will have something to fit in a body of work? With Jacki...are you finding that working in the prison is causing you to have so many different bodies of work, that you are struggling to find a pattern. Is a pattern necessary?

I feel that with Soukka's work, he has accomplished making a pattern with his work, but they are all so different. I would not have thought them to be able to flow so well, but his use of color (similar to Chris's in a way) makes them all blend so well. They just have such harmony. I appreciate his different elements that make it so.

new/more

Xavier Nuez

I discovered Xavier Nuez when I was at Art on the Lake by the MAM a few summers ago which was cool because I actually got to talk to him, but I thought that Ben would appreciate his use of light and color in his "Alley" series.

Recently he has posted another series called "Glam Bugs" Which I really enjoy. What else do you do with flies other than this(which is not Nuez's work):



But seriously... I think there's a real beauty to something so small. No one can really find that in dead bugs which most people are disgusted by.




I really think that it's cool that Nuez can make these everyday annoyances a piece of art. It definitely makes me think that I have to be more aware of my surroundings. That way I won't miss these kinds of opportunities.

New Stuff

Nick Hren

Awesome. This PHOTOGRAPHER is awesome. It's great to see someone around the SNC campus that does not participate in anything art department produce great work.


Nick is the true definition of a photographer , to me at least. He is probably one of the most "real" photographers, if not artists, on this campus. Nick does not do this because he wants to produce trendy work. He does not do this to impress people. He does not do this for anyone else but himself. Honestly, Nick does not even really know that he is an artist. Nick and I used to be roommates a couple of years ago, but have since grew apart with our busy lives controling most of our time. We spent many late nights suffering from insomnia together - writing raps, making stupid short movies, and talking about the most random things you could imagine... or couldn't. It is no surpise to me that Nick has so much talent speaking without words. He is so good with words when he does try to comunicate, but this is a completely differnt level of communication.
The other night I walked into the graphics lab, and there was Nick - scanning away. We sometimes complain or find it hard to shoot/develop/scan/edit. Nick is not an art major. He has a busy schedule. Yet he is able to find time to do something that he has a passion for. If this is something that we are going to school for, or possibly may end up doing as a career, this is the mindset that we must be in. After a while this "work" should become part of you. A connection should be there. If you are not excited to see the work that you have produced, maybe you are not doing the right thing/shooting with the right camera/shooting the right subject matter. Really , try to make a connection with what you are doing and it will eventually become a part of you that you must get out. You will be excited to do this!


Nick tried to get into our photography class a while back, but Shane would not let him because he did not complete the prerequisites to enter the class. Frankly, I am happy that Nick wasn't able to take the course. I think that if he were "under pressure " to produce, he would not make the beautiful, real, raw, work that he is producing. I have felt that some of us, including myself, have been doing work for a grade rather than something that we believe in. Honestly, who cares what Shane thinks of what you are doing. If it's something "real" to you, the process that he speaks of will eventually catch on and you will see great development of UNIQUE work.
When I saw this image all I could think about was the work that Sam has been doing with her grandma. Now I am not saying this to put Sam's work down, but there is a different feel to this photograph compared to Sam's work. I'm not sure if it is in the camera choice, the film speed, the depth of field, or all of the above, but I just get a genuine/real feeling from this photograph. Nick told me what his grandma told him right before he took this image. It was something like "the road is the arm of my mother, calling me home"... that's freakin deep. And the best part is - he captured this so well that I can almost get that feeling.


Anyways, I am presenting his work tomorrow, but I put different images up. Nick is a great photographer - and I think he could actually have some success if he keeps doing what he is doing. Little does he know that I added a special touch to this clothes line photo. The little blue specs are crayon fragments of mine that have been stuck on the scanner for forever... That's what I'm talkin about.

So the question of the day is: Are you doing the art you are doing for yourself, or are you doing it for Shane's approval/a good grade?

Consistency

After the trip to Chicago I have thought a lot about Kline's work. I know that this is not a new artist to anyone but he still interests me a lot. Seeing his work in full at the Art Institute I was amazed at the movement and certainty to his work. I would argue that his work is not complicated in terms of elements used or even technically. But it feels certain to me. He has a specific style that seeps through each piece of his work, but each is still different. I think that this ability can be carried through every medium. In photography it may be more difficult to come up with a particular style, and it is not necessarily a must, at all. But if your photos can be consistently different (retaining an idea through every shot) maybe it would become stronger with every new body of work. I struggle with this, just as everyone does. But in thinking about it, the fact that I want to retain some sense of likeness in each photo does not mean they cannot be vastly different and still tied together.

Wouldn't it make sense that each photo you take can be tied to one another? I know last semester that I never gained a specific direction in terms of staging my photos but each became an elongated way of expressing what I have from the start- disconnectedness. It was hard to see in one singular photo but could be better represented through multiple images.

Also getting to see Eggleston's work in the Art Institute amazed me. I think Eggleston is a prime example of retaining a sort of style throughout a large body of work. Seeing all of his imagery, it was consistent- one to the next. How can we retain that consistency in a small body of work, even if we do different things? Eggleston didn't settle for taking photos of tricycles at a different angle. Eggleston saw things in a different way, which made his work unique. In fact, it's not that different, because I'm sure we've all seen a tricycle in that same way, but Eggleston captured it.

How great is it that we can always continue to grow from what we see, others work? While Kline's work feels randomly certain, Eggleston sees things differently consistently, if that makes sense.

To summize my scattered thoughts: see things in a new way. Force yourself to look beyond a curtain (see the light and shadow). Force yourself to look beyond a tricycle and see a giant. It is possible and rewarding. Kline's work is intriguing to me because he retained a style along with Eggleston.

Ousmane Ndiaye Dago

This woman does what I have always wanted to try...Or one of the many things I would like to try... She has literally covered her models with the land. I think the whole idea of creating the body to create landscapes is brilliant. I have been trying to figure out ways of doing that without have it be a blunt nude photo. The idea of shooting nude and doing it in a tasteful way is always a constant challenge I think...What makes the body a landscape? How do we shoot it with the restrictions we have? Taking underwater photos has been hard because of the restrictions of using a swimsuit...I am trying to figure out how to work around that. I think Dago has really done something so beautiful is creating this faceless person, who looks statuesque, but is covered with things that are organic. What is more organic then the body itself...Where is this idea that we come from the earth orginally...? How wonderful to make these faceless people and bringing them back to the roots of oneself. They become a part of wherever Dago places them.