New York-based artist Chris Gentile creates sculptures for the sole purpose of photographing them. The artist exhibits each work as a large photographic C-print, thus distancing the actual object from the viewer. His images promote a conceptual space relation and deception of reality through the ambiguity of form. The artist constructs the objects specifically for the photograph, creating a co-dependency between object and image. Chris[…..]
Iranian artist Shirin Neshat addresses the role of women in Islamic society through compelling photo and video work. Her early work consisted of photos of veil-covered women in extremely compromised or uncomfortable positions with writing across their hands or faces. Her more recent work deals primarily with the transition between art and cinema, allowing for a narrative to create particular characters. By basing her video[…..]
With an interest in the human relationship to water, photographer Kerry Skarbakka stages a variety of water-related scenes, including floods and droughts. Skarbakka describes human interaction with water through extreme situations that underscore the substance’s fundamental importance and power. These photos mimic actual documentation, though they are all fully constructed and staged in areas such as swamps, sewers, bathrooms and oceans. The artist received his[…..]
The videos and photographs of Chinese artist Yang Fudong reflect the human condition in a state of existential uncertainty. The individuals represented in the works are young and disillusioned and seem to struggle with political, social and moral values, while coping with China’s growth as an economic state. Fudong also references specific film genres as the characters attempt to carry out a narrative through multiple[…..]
New York-based Dutch artist Sebastiaan Bremer creates a variety of manipulated photos that are produced by drawing directly onto a photograph with photo retouching inks. Bremer uses personal photos of friends and family and employs a dense application of pointillism across the surface of the photo to create surreal scenes with reduced information. These images suggest dreams or memories and the associations of personal relationships.[…..]
Demetrius Oliver uses his body to explore social issues of race, history and culture. Large digital c-prints depict a variety of simple, yet compelling, images of the artist interacting with loaded objects and materials such as coal and white cream. The artist also draws pictures on his own body, such as railroad tracks across his hands and small ships on his finger nails, as well[…..]
The photography of Chicago-based artist Sabrina Raaf often depicts a certain absurdity of science. Images of machines that make art for the artist and automated systems and contraptions that are assembled from industrial materials, together with architectural elements, create installations that embody both the familiarity and stark distance of science fiction. Many works are based on a “what if” scenario, which allows the artist to[…..]
