Project 5: Photography I The Frame. Research Task: ‘Local’ Artistnary

To begin our Photography elective we are, as is becoming a pattern, given the names of several practitioners to research. In this case, we have the task of researching photographers whose work concerns “the local”. Often, but not always, they focus on their local environment, so this collection of work has an autobiographical nature too. My research has shown me some fascinating and innovative approaches to this subject and I’m sure will influence the way in which I approach this project. 

Keith Arnatt

Keith Arnatt worked in several mediums as a conceptual artist and carried this way of working into his photography. Perhaps, despite their different impulses, conceptual art and visual communications are not so far apart as they may seem, since both seek to convey a message to the viewer. As I looked at Arnatt’s photographs I was interested to see that each body of work felt distinct from the others - I didn’t identify a typical Arnatt visual language.

The image that I was most drawn to is this one:

ortrait of the Artist as a Shadow of his Former Self, 1969, at https://www.1854.photography/2015/09/keith-arnatt-the-conceptual-photographer-who-influenced-a-generation/

This is a mixed media photograph in which Arnatt outlined his shadow in chalk, then filled it in with a translucent layer of paint. I’m particularly interested in the way in which the mortar of the wall looks as if it’s superimposed over the man. It seems to take this ephemeral shadow and fix it permanently in place within its environment. It reminds me of Mondrian’s Evening Red Tree, in which the sky us both behind and in front of the tree, so that it is totally embraced within its environment. 

Piet Mondrian - Evening: Red Tree, 1908-1910. 99 x 70 cm. Gemeentemuseum den Haag, Hague, Netherlands, at https://www.ideelart.com/magazine/piet-mondrian-artwor

Going back to Arnatt’s image, an alternative approach now would be to achieve the mortar effect by digitally layering and blending  I have used both approaches previously in creating my own images. I’ve found that painting on printed photographs can have some unpredictable effects, depending on how the photo was printed  if water-based ink is used then the photographic image can be disturbed in interesting but often unintended ways. With permanent printing I’ve found it hard to get the paint to stay put, and it can require a layer of gesso underneath. This would make Arnatt’s translucent effect impossible. For this reason, if I wanted a controlled effect I would probably work in Photoshop, but perhaps additionally make a mixed media version to see whether the unpredictability throws something interesting into the mix.

Gawain Barnard

Looking at Gawain Bernard’s website and his featured bodies of work, I would say that he’s a portrait photographer, although not usually of humans. He conveys a very strong sense of subject, with a definite focal image in many of his photographs. In the following screenshot you can see that in this body of work the photos are all of woodland, but each photo has its own subject of focus.

Gawain Barnard, Edge of an Autumn Forest, at https://www.gawainbarnard.com/edge-of-the-forest

Similarly, in his body of work, Y Cwm Du, which concerns the burning of the local environment, Barnard features several ‘exhibits’ of items photographed on this burnt background.

Gawain Barnard, Y Cwm Du https://www.gawainbarnard.com/copy-of-maybe-we-ll-be-soldiers, 

I don’t feel so much of a connection with this practitioner. In terms of my own work, it would be interesting to experiment with photographing features of the landscape as if they were people. It does add something of a personal quality to the images.

Tina Barney

Looking at Tina Barney’s large body of work, Theater of Manners, it all feels slightly awkward, perhaps as being a guest at a wedding often does. Many if the photos are cropped so that heads or other body parts are cut off. They look like a bad photographer’s snapshots, but presumably this is deliberate. 

Tina Barney, The Blueberry Pie, 1988, at http://www.tinabarney.com/#/theaterofmanners/

In another photo, the woman standing to the far left of the composition also appears to be an outsider due to her proximity to the left edge. 

Tina Barney, Sunday New York Times, 1982,  http://www.tinabarney.com/#/theaterofmanners/

It’s helpful to see these examples of how to disrupt a sense of harmony. But perhaps it takes more skill than I possess to carry off what, on the face of it, looks like bad composition. I think I need to get good at following the rules before I have the confidence to know when to break them in this medium.

Roni Horn

Roni Horn is another artist who works across many disciplines both in image work and books. Her photography has great appeal for me in its abstraction  I particularly like her photos of the Thames. They capture a variety of moods and atmosphere of this body of water, which is very much ‘local’ art, and yet the photos could be any body of water or something else entirely in some cases. The close up views remove any identifying landmarks, meaning that the images are local yet untethered to a particular location.

Roni Horn, Still Water (The River Thames, for Example), 1999, at https://www.moma.org/audio/playlist/247/3178

Roni Horn, Still Water (The River Thames, for Example) (detail), 1999, at

https://www.artsy.net/artwork/roni-horn-still-water-the-river-thames-for-example-

I like these photos because they evoke for me many happy memories, both of gazing at moving water, and of taking many close up photos of it. I enjoy taking close up and macro photography partly because I’m visually impaired and the photos show me things in a way I can’t otherwise see. Also I am fascinated by the level of detail in our surroundings that our brains must edit out in order that we can see the big picture. For a decade or so I’ve had a sporadic project underway called My Extraordinary World, in which I investigate the extraordinary detail, pattern and decoration within everyday objects. 

Here is one of my photos of sea foam. 

Karen Knor

Karen Knorr’s photography could make no claims to be indexical (a concept which I believe is outdated and reductive, but more of that later). Knorr’s photographs are highly decorative, either by virtue of colourfully altering images, or by photographing elaborate backgrounds and then inserting culturally relevant animals or birds into the spaces. 

Karen Knorr, Philip of Spain Wept when His Armada went Down., from Questions 2017-2018, at https://karenknorr.com/photography/questions/

This photo is from a body of work in which Knorr took a series of photos in a building site when all the workers had gone home. Her process of colouration and captioning each photo with a line of poetry is, for Knorr, a way of reifying the space. Much like my My Extraordinary World series, Knorr takes the mundane and makes it extraordinary and even sacred. The decorative approach within this body of work echoes her bodies of work within Japanese and Indian temples and shrines, making one context seem similar to the other, and thus lifting the building site into becoming a sacred space.

Karen Knorr, The Flight to Freedom, Durbar Hall, Juna Mahal, Dungarpur, from 

India Song 2008 - 2021, at https://karenknorr.com/photography/india-son

By comparison, this photograph of a highly decorated Indian room could be said to be more true to life, if it wasn’t for the photo of a crane superimposed on the scene. These sumptuous high resolution photos are a delight to behold and communicate well the riches of upper caste Indians.

In these two very different settings. Knorr uses two different approaches to create images that are surprisingly similar. Again I return to the question of simplicity: how do these visually appealing yet complex images communicate in a way that is far from simple? My eyes don’t just skim over any of Knorr’s images, they want to linger and explore. They grab my attention in a way that Tina Barney’s photos don’t. I want to work out how the complex communicates.

Peter Mansell

The link takes us to an OCA video that records two tutors commenting on Mansell’s body of ‘landscape’ photography. Mansell uses the local environment to comment in his life as a wheelchair user. 

Peter Mansell at https://www.oca.ac.uk/weareoca/photography/peter-mansell/

This photo shows a scuffed wall which shows the wear and tear of the wheelchair’s regular passage through a less than accessible space. One of the tutors commented that the square format of Mansell’s photos gives a feeling of confinement, which, perhaps, is a more subtle way of using composition to convey the experience of being in a wheelchair. 

I find it interesting to see photography being used in this documentary way. Mansell clearly made a lot of editorial decisions in this body of work. However, it adds to my feeling that I don’t want my photography to be purely documentary. I want them to have visual appeal in the way that Knorr’s and Horn’s photos do. I guess I’m an artist more than a journalist.

Marc Rees

Marc Rees is a Welsh performance photographer who also takes a lot of wedding photos. He often uses himself as a model for his performance art. Both of the following images are from his own website, www.marcrees.com

It’s interesting to see how these photographs are staged. I like the way that Rees has dressed up to match the yellow door. In both photographs his flamboyant style is clearly evident, the vibrant colours popping against the blacked out backgrounds. Lighting and atmosphere are key to how these photographs come across, but I haven’t been able to find out whether Rees sets up his own lighting or works with the lighting provided  I imagine the answer may be both, depending on whether he’s photographing an event or a performance self portrait.

In terms of my own photography, I think I could learn something of how to set up a scene from Marc Rees. My usual practice is not to stage a photo, but to use my camera to investigate what is already there. However, during Project 4 I set up a still life of black and white objects, and I did take some care with this to set up a neutral background and side lighting. I think I probably also take advantage of naturally occurring directions of light and choosing the best angle and distance from my subject. As I use more of my camera settings I will be able to exert more influence on how the background appears, such as creating blur. It will be good to be more intentional about this, rather than only acting on educated instinct.

Jodi Taylor

Jodi Taylor is another OCA student, who created a body of work about her childhood home. Unfortunately, the only definite link I have to her work is the OCA one, and the images on that web page won’t load. I have tried to find her work by other routes, but Jodi Taylor is a very common name and there are many links to many photographers of this name. I can’t be at all certain which is the right Jodi Taylor. 

I would have liked to see her work as I’m exploring a childhood theme in my first exercise for this project, so it would have been interesting for me to see her body of work. 

June Cadogan

June Cadogan is another photographer who is somewhat elusive online. She has a website with images for sale, but it is entirely devoid of descriptions or indeed any words that do not pertain precisely to the retail process. According to https://www.harrowopenstudios.com/wp/artist/june-cadogan/ “June collects stories of the people who use private and community space and the activities that take place there,” Most of her photographs show landscape scenes, such as this, which is a nice photo but wouldn’t persuade me to part with £600. 

June Cadogan, A Canadian Winter 4, at https://www.cadoganfineartcollection.com/a-canadian-winter-4

This next photograph, of the sky, is interesting because of its circular format. I’ve enjoyed working on circular canvas boards in the past. The virtue of those is that there’s no need to try to source a circular frame. Not so with a gicle print, and you’d probably have to settle for a square frame. Either I’m missing something or Cadogan stuck her camera in the air and took a photo of something I see above my head most days, and, indeed, have photographed very easily. Again, I don’t see that it merits its £600 price tag when anyone could take this photo most days of the year. 

From this photographer all I will really take into my own work is the very achievable desire to do something more interesting.

Jane Cadogan, Morning Sky 2, at https://www.cadoganfineartcollection.com/morning-sky-2

This seems to finish this post on a bit of a low note. However, there will be another research post. I’ve learned a lot about contemporary photography from this research but not much about my particular interest in close up and macro photography. For this I plan to visit the UCA library to see what I can learn there. I will do this, and return to my critique of indexical photography, further through the project.