VIRTUAL OPEN STUDIOS WINTER 2021: Art 156 Project Development in Photography
Instructor - Kathleen Perry Dyer
Abbey Carmel
Abbey Carmel
“Tooth Fairy”
Analog Photograph
Abbey Carmel
“Tinkerbell and Friends”
Analog Photograph
Abbey Carmel
“Snow White”
Analog Photograph
Abbey Carmel
“The Pink”
Analog Photograph
Angela Martinez
Angela Martinez
“6 ft. apart”
Canon Digital Photography
Angela Martinez
“Outdoors”
Canon Digital Photography
Angela Martinez
“One”
Canon Digital Photography
Emma Zienowicz
Temporal Touch
I explore touch during the socially distanced pandemic through alternative printing processes that allow for images and memories to become delicate and malleable. My images explore themes of surrender and sexuality through the mode of self portraiture. In this time we are deprived of touch, yet simultaneously hyper aware of everything we do touch. I found that this yearning for touch could be symbolically expressed through a well loved image. I wished I could be like that image. This made me think of old smut that would have been stuffed in pockets, wallets, even dropped in city streets. There is a certain separate life that develops from their travels that extends out from the image itself. In my series I use repetition and found objects to further explore this theme of extended touch and general loss of control. This loss of control is also touched upon through my use of bdsm symbology through a leather collar and rope. The worn quality of the images also represents the way reality is altered when a memory is formed. Our daily lives have become distorted from the current crisis. We are spending more time alone and more time at home. Time shrinks and expands these days much too quickly. I have been stepping out of this time and looking back, seeing where I stand now: making the present moment into a memory.
Alcohol Transfer with Found Objects
Alcohol Transfer on Packing Paper
Alcohol Transfer on Handmade Paper
Alcohol Transfer on Metallic Paper
Itzel Gutierrez
Itzel Gutierrez
“Drunken Sorrows”
Digital Photograph
Itzel Gutierrez
“Bring her back to me”
Digital Photograph
Itzel Gutierrez
“Dear God”
Digital Photograph
Itzel Gutierrez
“Grey Skies”
Digital Photograph
Lesly Linares
Leftover
The idea of this project began with the concept of trying to find ways to photograph my feelings such as anxiety and depression-- which often feel indescribable. Given the topic that I wanted to tackle, it was difficult at times to find the motivation to photograph what I originally planned. There was a push and pull in trying to decide whether to photograph events that made me feel how I do, or simply the way that I was feeling. I was trying to capture memories without evading the emotional experience. Those of which felt forced in the beginning.
I started to give myself the freedom to photograph what pulled me. Due in part because I realized the photographs that felt more powerful and sincere were taken when the feelings were more presently elevated. Giving myself that freedom, led to revealing the self reflective process of emotions and experiences. I realized I was photographing phases and processing of an ongoing journey. I also wanted to use the frame as if it were the incomplete images of memories I saw in my mind. By using the camera in this manner, I began to feel a sense of empowerment that I wanted to evade as well. Instead of trying to plan every single image out, it felt like I surrendered to the camera.
In doing so, it helped me see that these were some of the true ways that I felt. What I saw when I looked at myself in the mirror, I didn't recognize, nor want to admit that it was me. I came to the realization that I am also mourning the person I used to be. Discovering what is left over of me, and for me to process. The reality is that the pain, anger and empowerment is my own. It's the leftover. I am the one that has to accept these things, understand it is ongoing, it won’t be linear and decide what to do with what is left over. The pain is mine to carry, feel, process, and one day hopefully heal from.
Digital Photograph
“Enduring. 1”
Digital Photograph
““Enduring. 2”
Digital Photograph
“Enduring. 3”
Digital Photograph
“Leftover. 1”
Maya Corona
Processing the reality of a deadly pandemic has been exceptionally difficult. As someone who thrives outdoors, witnessing the rapid disintegration of the world as I have always known it has been confusing and surreal. The world is not what it was a year ago, nothing is really. I have felt and observed an overwhelming absence in almost everywhere I go, creating within me what I would describe as a sort of inverted claustrophobia. The opposite of claustrophobia is kenophobia- the fear of open space. The Latin term for this aversion to emptiness in art is horror vacui, which mirror’s Aristotle’s notion that “nature abhors a vacuum”. In other words, emptiness goes against the laws of nature.
Somewhere between a dream and a nightmare rests the phenomenon we are all experiencing, here and now, an abnormal chasm manufactured for our own safety. Now, more than ever, places lack human beings in spaces that were built for them. This new normal of masked faces, empty infrastructure, marked up spaces, and a dwelling sense of apprehension has never been normal, yet we march on in the hopes that this soon shall pass. I want to bridge the gap between vision and experience, between what we can physically see and the immaterial feelings that accompany these spaces. I have attempted to capture this uneasiness, the inherent instinct within all of us that tells us something is off, just at a glance, through the omnipresent energies I’ve discerned in my own environment.
Maya Corona
“Kenophobia, 1”
Digital Photograph
Maya Corona
“Kenophobia, 2”
Digital Photograph
Maya Corona
“Kenophobia, 3”
Digital Photograph
Maya Corona
“Kenophobia, 4”
Digital Photograph
Mia Donnelly
“Red”
Nikon D3400
“Yellow”
Nikon D3400
“Blue”
Nikon D3400
“Purple”
Nikon D3400
Mohini Batish
I titled this work “Artist Development” because through these photographs and compositions I began to explore ways I could be visually represented in the industry as a musical artist. This term is used in the music industry to describe artists on the rise that are figuring out their musical sound and look. The genre I write in is Pop, infused with other styles such as RnB, country, and Bollywood. Some of my musical inspirations include Whitney Houston, Patti Labelle, Music Soulchild, Arijit Singh, Charlie Puth, and Taylor Swift. Most of these images have a solid white background, which allows the figure to stand out and brings out defining features of a person that make the images more striking. I wanted these to look like promotional images as well as shots that could be on the cover of an album, or inside an album booklet. I experimented with different costumes, props, poses, and make-up looks inspired by what types of looks that current musical artists have done in their photoshoots. There is also a visual motif of the color yellow in many of these images- it represents happiness, positivity, optimism, intellect, and loyalty which are all principles I value.
My set-up was two large white bed-sheets that were ironed out, then tacked to a wall in my living room. I also used LED lights with gel filters. I utilized Photoshop to get pastel filters over some images and to get a bright white background. I would love for other musical artists to see these images and be inspired to create their own representations of themselves. It is great to have the ability and agency to do the edits and choose the final images myself. In the future, it would be fun to take these images and put them inside an album booklet alongside song lyrics that I have written.
Mohini Batish
Sony a65 Digital Photography
Mohini Batish
Sony a65 Digital Photography
Mohini Batish
Sony a65 Digital Photography
Mohini Batish
Sony a65 Digital Photography
Sunny Rolfs
Wistful gray tones imbue my photographs with my emotional and spiritual connection to the land.Serendipitous moments on the film reveal the light and shadow of my environment, which reflects my interior experience. My images are like memories.
There is vulnerability and tension between human touch and the natural landscape. Power lines interfere with horizon lines. Fences block the viewers' entrance into the landscape. We pretend this land is untouched by modernity, maybe in order to escape back to our wild roots. Collectively, we are grappling with the violation of our sacred relationship with nature.
Sunny Rolfs
“Untouched, 1”
35mm Film Photography
Sunny Rolfs
“Untouched, 2”
35 mm Film Photography
Sunny Rolfs
“Untouched, 3”
35 mm Film Photography
Sunny Rolfs
“Untouched, 4”
35 mm Film Photography
Valerie Jackson
It is my personal belief that the meaning of every photograph at its fundamental level is a statement about time. The camera’s ability to make still our lives as they play out in front of us, thus allowing us to relive moments time and time again, is one unlike any other medium available to us at this point in time. These frozen moments are said to contain truth, objectivity, and fact about the way things happened when they did (even leading to photography being contested as an art form). In this project, I am attempting to construct subjective photographs that visualize my own memory of ordinary moments as I’ve recorded them through journaling, staged to reflect how memories are fictionalized through the attempt to document a life. There are also distortions that happen over time, since a recollection of an experience is simply an echo of the last time you thought about it. I want to accept the instability as part of my relationship with my past, acknowledging that no one means of recording can encompass an experience in a completely whole and objective way.
Valerie Jackson
“Entry #1”
Nikon D3500 Digital Photography
Valerie Jackson
“Entry #2”
Nikon D3500 Digital Photography
Valerie Jackson
“Entry #3”
Nikon D3500 Digital Photography
Valerie Jackson
“Entry #4”
Nikon D3500 Digital Photography