David Salle - Tree of life |
'Chernobyl', 2011 - Diana Thater |
The exhibition presented paintings from his most recent ongoing body of work, the Tree of Life series. In these paintings, Salle creates a Garden of Eden rife with canonical symbolism and moral conflict. The juxtaposed protagonists are drawn from the work of illustrator Peter Arno, whose cartoons exemplified the sophisticated visual style associated with The New Yorker magazine at mid-century. The lower panels serve as visual counterpoints to the action above ground, representing certain art historical "roots," the idea of the subconscious, and the past. Together, they continue David Salle's legacy as a master of postmodern painting known for his deconstruction of images and uncanny compositional instinct. One thing that really stood out to me in his series was the use of colour, bright and a cartoon-like style, and this is definitely something that inspired parts of my project.
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Diana Thater is an artist who lives and works in Los Angeles, California. For this work, Thater spent time in the ‘Zone of Alienation’ which surrounds the site of the nuclear disaster, filming the eroded architecture and wildlife of the one-hundred mile wide radioactive territory. The animals she films have managed to survive amid the devastation of the only existing post-human landscape, demonstrating a wilderness of man’s making. Through this installation, visitors will experience a world where a man-made catastrophe has abruptly halted all progress and animals inhabit an irradiated landscape. Overlaying physical and filmic spaces, Thater confronts the successes of civilisation with its profound failure. This links to my theme as it explores the relationships between man made disaster and nature, and I will be exploring the relationship between technology (man made) and humans (natural beings).
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First shoot |
Second shoot |
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On this image I used a paintbrush dipped in bleach and dabbed different parts of the image to create a distorted feel. I also dabbed a bit of lemon juice on, and the mix of these chemicals lifted off the top layer of the colour on the print, creating a blue hue.
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On this image I used 2 slices of lemon which I had coated in bleach, and printed them onto the image. I found that this didn't create as much of a dramatic change that I had anticipated, so I used watercolours to go over the areas where I had put the lemons. I used blues, greens, and yellows to cover these two circle areas, and then I used a light blue to go over the rest of the image.
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On this image I painted on a thin layer of bleach over the whole photo, and I really like the pastel, almost ombre effect it created, with the different colours blending into each other. What also works well is that the subject starts to blend into the surroundings, fulfilling my intentions of distorting a portrait.
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I dipped this entire print into bleach, leaving it in there for around 10 seconds, and then I quickly took it out and rinsed it with water to stop the reaction from continuing. What works well ere is the orangey colour this has created on the subjects hair, really contrasting with the subtler pastel green of the background.
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On this image I used honey and I drizzled it over the image, covering up some spots more thoroughly than others. I then took my paintbrush and painted bleach onto the sections that I hadn't covering with honey, and then after about 10 seconds I rinsed the image in water taking off the honey and bleach. This resulted in quite an interesting pattern, with some sections left their original colour, and some with a more blue/green/orange tint.
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On this image I used a thick paintbrush to paint bleach onto the entire image. Once I had let it rinse, I took some scissors and started to scratch the image to try and create an interesting pattern. I think maybe I let the bleach react for too long, as the image has come out quite pastel, meaning that the scratching is not as effective and is definitely less visible than I had hoped.
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On this image I used a paintbrush and painted a few little lines and sections of bleach quite randomly. I then rinsed and used a lighter to burn the edges of the image, and finally went over the models face using watercolour to try and really distort her portrait. I used reds and yellows as I thought they would contrast well with the blues that I had created earlier with the bleach. I think this image is very effective.
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On this image I used lemon slices coated in bleach and printed them on different areas of the image. I overlapped them on the portrait section of the image, resulting in this red/orange effect that is rather striking and becomes the focal point of the image. It contrasts with the lighter colours in the background and surrounding areas, and I think this photo is very effective.
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On this image I used purely watercolour to distort the photo, creating a circle of yellow and orange around the models face, and then kind of blending it out into a darker red colours in the surrounding areas. I think this make the face the focal point of the image and also blurs out the rest of her body, which I think is quite endearing and visually interesting.
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On this image I used I used a paintbrush and painted a circle using bleach around the subjects face. I repeated this step twice and I really wanted the centre to pop and for the hair to turn a red colour, and I think the result is a very striking image.
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On this image I used a paintbrush to paint on bleach and lemon juice onto different parts of the image. Once rinsed I used a lighter to burn the edges, and looking back now I think perhaps I should have burnt the edges even more and experimented further, to make it more striking.
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On this image I used a paintbrush, and painted strokes of lemon juice and bleach over the whole image, lifting the colour to reveal different colours; blues, purples, reds, greens.
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On this image I used honey and dabbed it in a few little spots, and then dipped the print in bleach. This resulted in an interesting pattern, leaving some sections with a purple/grey hue, and the rest of the background a bright blue/green colour. I Also managed to create the striking red colour in the centre on the models hair, which was created by the reaction with bleach.
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On this image I used multiple slices of lemon coated in bleach and printed them onto the photo, pressing them down for about 30 seconds each time. I layered them a few time, overlapping the previous sections where I had printed the lemon.
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On this image I again used slices of lemon coated in bleach, and I think this is my most successful attempt at this technique. This is because the image itself was much darker to begin with, with the background being quite grey, and so the contrast between the background and the bleached areas is much more visible. I think this image is very effective and striking, with the texture of the lemon creating interesting patterns and marks on the print.
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On this image I used a paintbrush and dotted bleach and lemon juice around the image. This resulted in the interesting patterns and dots of colours that are all over the print.
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On this image again i used a paintbrush to paint the whole thing with bleach. I focused on some areas more than others, concentrating the bleach in certain areas to really lift of the top layer of colour to reveals the blues undrneath.
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With this image, I sued a rougher paintbrush, and dabbed the bleach all around the portrait. I think this more forceful and rougher technique has created some interesting contrasts and patterns; the portrait is unrecognisable and in the centre of the image the yellow really contrasts with the background.
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On this image i dipped it in bleach for only around 5 seconds and quickly rinsed it. I then went over it with water colours, enhancing the green turquoise colours in the right hand bottom corner.
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In this image I used a spoon to drip the bleach in lines across the print. I left the bleach on for around 20 seconds before rinsing it with water.
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