Dark twist

Well, I can't help but notice my interest in other artworks and artists have somewhat revealed a darker appearance on my pinterest board.


It has somewhat been frowned upon, from an academic point of view, of using pinterest as a source of gathering material. I can understand to a point what they require in the way of referencing, is lacking a bit in pinterest but the array of visuals you can gather is a fantastic basis to build on for investigating artists you never would have came across otherwise! So I honestly cannot praise it enough. I have used it more than once when starting a new semester to get myself geared up.


After writing my 4,000 word essay the theme was beginning to touch upon the concept of legacy and what is left our identity when we are no longer here. There is no doubt that current family situation is shaping this outlook just now. Personal experience shapes creativity.


A few artists I have came across and beginning to research their works further from finding them on pinterest are:


Greg Sand - "My work is about memory, the passage of time, mortality and the photograph's role in shaping our experience of loss. Photography's unique ability to capture a fleeting moment allows it to expose the temporality of life...my work aims to question the nature of photographs and challenge the traditional definition of photography." (http://www.gregsand.net/statement.html)


Christopher McKenney - Specializes in horror, surrealist photography. Follow the link to his website - http://www.christophermckenney.com/ Some of his photographs have a real shock value and can be quite disconcerting to view!


Rob Mulholland  - "My practise aims to explore all aspects of life. I'm interested in the theme of ancestry and continuity. Our world is in constant flux and our own personal lives are shaped by political and social powers beyond our control. I want to celebrate the individual, explore the resonance we have with the natural environment and convey how we are affected by the elemental forces of life and creation." (http://www.robmulholland.co.uk/about-contact/4530071531)


Herbert Bagilone - who painted shadowy figures within an abandonded psychiatric hospital, again well worth a look, follow the link - http://www.citylab.com/design/2013/07/humankinds-creepiest-art-appears-abandoned-italian-mental-hospital/6285/


Also what came up was the visual of 'death' from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, follow the YouTube link to remind yourself of the animation - https://youtu.be/IdSpZgE3fD4 -
I always found the style quite striking, simplistic in design but works so well.


"One of the things that got me excited about it in the early stages was the question of what it should look like. We knew it was going to be stylised, but not exactly how. The producers came along with the suggestion of creating something in the vein of Lotte Reiniger, an Austrian-born animator working in the 1930s and 50s doing silhouette style animations. What we got out of that was a certain simplicity and naivety. We knew it had to be told very graphically with bold silhouettes. But Ben and I were keen to make sure it wasn't only that, that there was something else we could add.
Ben brought along the notion of Eastern shadow puppetry in terms of projecting shadows onto a cloth via a flame. The way that they made these things was to stand behind a bunch of pole puppets and have a fire burning. The closer you were to the fire the more blurry the shadows became, whereas the closer you brought your puppet to the cloth or the surface upon on which the story was told, the crisper it appeared. So we tried to transfer that device and use that in our animation. It was something that was quite enigmatic in terms of drawing on blurry shadows and indistinctness." (http://www.fxguide.com/featured/framestore_deathly_hallows_animation/)


Also the idea of present absence - a theory which has stuck strongly in my mind with the reading into to Jacques Derrida. Whereby there are traces of everything before now present today. Constantly being 'haunted.' It's such a deep subject and I'm finding myself struggling to keep up with all the influx of visuals and other artists branching out as I investigate further. But as I said perhaps a darker twist on things to come....