Tutors Feedback for Assignment One

Overall Comments
This is a very good start to the course. You carried out some well-focused
research to inform your own practice for both parts of the assignment and you can be pleased with the results.

The written statement is mostly descriptive, but very good extended notes on the practitioners who influenced you, and you provide good details of the process, documenting evidence of a logical workflow from the exploration of initial ideas to the final images.

What I can’t find is a reflection – see below from the handbook.

Reflection
Before you send your work to your tutor, check it against the assessment criteria listed in the introduction to this course guide and make sure that it meets all the criteria.

I know the assignment brief doesn’t specifically ask you to include this with your submission, but it is something that you should document in your Learning Log.
This helps me understand how you are developing your ideas and thinking about the overall experience of the assignment.

Feedback on assignment

Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills, Quality of Outcome,
Demonstration of Creativity
The images for Part One work well, combining found material purchased from Ebay with images from a book of old movie stars. You explore a range of combinations juxtaposing the two images in different ways and with different shapes. While there is a consistency in your approach, there is also a similarity to the content. Of the twelve images submitted for Part 1, which one do you think works best for you, and why?
Do you think there is a sense of progression or variation in the images, did you have anything about this in mind while you were working on the set?

John Stezaker’s work is powerful, intriguing and often disturbing, it is also very distinct and clearly identifiable as his own style. While he clearly influences your first set of images in Part 1, how do you feel you made that process your own?
This is one thing you might consider in your reflection – more about this later.

With Part Two, you explore the idea of montage much more with a wider range of subject matter and exploring different collage techniques, and here I think more of your personality is coming across in the finished work. Photograph 4, constructing four different portraits of the same subject is really intriguing and has (for me) a really disturbing and fractured feel about it – multiple and divided personalities. Although additional to the submission, the final two images are genuinely engaging with a history or diary feel to them allowing the viewer to make associations with the range of subject matter and search for a narrative – this is a form of interaction which can be really stimulating.

Coursework
Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills, Demonstration of Creativity

There is some very good work in your Learning Log with very well documented exercises which shows a very grasp of the areas covered in this part of the course.
Some very good work exploring artists such as Hoch, Holbein and Sugimoto and Jeff Wall. Here you can see how the contemporary practitioners have looked for and found string influences in an historical context.

Research
Context, reflective thinking, critical thinking, analysis

As mentioned earlier, you didn’t include a self-assessment or reflection with the submission, and this would allow you to think about your work in a different, more conceptual way. You write in your Learning Log about Stezaker’s work, ‘He couples both the male and female portraits together, creating unique and interesting final portraits.’
But what is it that is unique and interesting? I would be particularly interested to know how you think the reading or interpretation of the images you made change from the original portraits after they have been combines with the portraits of the stars. Do you feel they might comment on the transformative effect of fame, or gender and even transgender, with the male/female combinations? And what impact you think your images might have on a viewer?

Stezaker, as you say in your research, talks about how collage opens up the
subconscious and was an influential tool/process for the Surrealists, did you
detect that in your own work?

You have opened up your research context in the Learning Log by looking at different art forms – in this case the montage work of artists Hannah Hoch, Banksy and Peter Kennard, this can be quite a liberating process when you apply it to the research for your assignments.

Learning Log
Context, reflective thinking, critical thinking, analysis

Your Blog is in good shape – easy to navigate and scroll through the exercises and assignment work. It would be useful to have a research tab and show evidence of independent activity – reading, exhibition visits, talks, and simply your thoughts.
Also where you can, try to engage with your peers – look at their work and try to exchange views and comments, participate in the OCA forum etc. You’ll be surprised at how helpful and stimulating this can be.

Suggested Reading

Part 2 and Assignment 2 are about the artist as an online curator, and producing a series of related images in a small book from an online source.
The brief suggests you ‘Think about a theme for your book and use the references provided throughout Part Two as inspiration.’
We would normally discuss your approach to assignment 2 as you worked your way through Part 2, but you have already submitted this. I can’t fault your work ethic and it’s great to see such an enthusiastic approach, but working too quickly, and especially submitting assignments before you’ve had a chance to reflect on my feedback means you haven’t given yourself enough time to think about what you learned, how you might do things differently, and importantly, go back and make any changes to your submission and additions or developments to your learning log.

OCA expects all students to act on tutor feedback and revision of
assignment material is something that is considered in assessment.

Summary
Strengths

Good initial research
Strong workflow
Well documented

Areas for development

Self-assessment/reflection
Extend research context
Pace your work

Assignment One: Combined Image

Produce either a series of 4 – 6 portraits ( looking at Stezaker and Stenram ), or a series of 4 – 6 landscape based images based on your immediate surroundings ( as with Gill’s Hackney Marshes series )

Part One: 

Use traditional ‘Cut and Paste’ techniques ( Scissors, Scalpel, Glue ) to produce a series of simple photomontages using elements from 2 – 5 original or found photographs. Re-Photograph your finished photomontages and present the work in your learning log as a digital file.

For this part of the assignment, I took inspiration from my research of John Stezaker and his cut and paste portraits of famous celebrities.

Marriage LXI, John Stezaker, 2010

Marriage II, John Stezaker, 2010

Pair XXII, John Stezaker, 2010

 

Knowing that I would be required to cut up old photographs, I decided that I didn’t want to use any of my own personal collection. Therefore taking inspiration from Nicky Bird’s series Question for Seller, 2002, I purchased several old, vintage portrait photographs from eBay.

Nicky Bird purchased unwanted, old family photographs from eBay, and archived them. She included written captions underneath, which were direct responses from the sellers of the photographs, to the questions she asked them ‘How did you come across the photograph and what, if anything, do you know about them’. 

“…Their replies, however brief, are as important as the photographs they are selling – sometimes alluding to a part of a discarded family history, or the everyday, where personal photographs have long since lost their original meaning.” 

Question for Seller, The First Purchase. Copyrighted to Nicky Bird, 2002-2007.

“I buy photographs every week. Bought these in a huge lot of thousands of photos at an auction. Mostly come from flea markets and estate sales originally. There might be some info on the front or back of some of the pictures. I’m not sure since I pulled out of the box a random group of 100+ photos. By the way, what do you do with them?” Question for seller, 2002-2007. Copyrighted to Nicky Bird.

My collection

Taking inspiration from Stezaker, I also purchased an old, vintage book, containing portraits of old film stars and celebrities. Stezaker combines portraits of celebrities together to produce one final portrait, and also cuts and pastes old postcards onto portraits. In order to be different, but still follow in Stezaker’s footsteps, I thought that by cutting and pasting famous celebrities portraits, together with portraits of ‘regular’ people, I would be able to make interesting final images. Even in our modern society, celebrities’ are idolised and looked up to for their looks and fashion, and it would have been the same in the years before. We as a society are constantly told that celebrities are better than us, more beautiful and that we will never be able to achieve that level of ‘beauty and perfection’. By combining the celebrities’ portraits with those of ‘regular people’, I could show that were are all similar. From our facial features, shapes of our faces, eyes, hair, clothing, the way we laugh or smile to the way we sit. 

 

Once I had all of my portrait photographs in front of me, and looking through the book of celebrity portraits, I didn’t have the heart to cut the original photographs up. I decided that I would re-photograph the original portraits, and the ones from inside the book, and get them re-printed at different sizes, then cut and paste the duplicate copies, instead of the originals. 

I had a digital copy of each photograph on my computer. I decided to play around on Photoshop, with the different photographs, to see which one would work well with the other, and how I should go about cutting them in order to make them fit together. I saved a copy of the manipulated images, as a reference for me to look at, when the time came to cutting the ‘real’ photographs. I then proceeded to cut the photographs and stuck them together, similar to John Stezaker’s work.  

Photograph One:

Photograph Two: 

Photograph Three: 

Photograph Four: 

Photograph Five:

Photograph Six:

Photograph Seven: 

Photograph Eight: 

Photograph Nine: 

Photograph Ten: 

 

Photograph Eleven: 

 

Photograph Twelve: 

 

Part Two: 

Using digital montage techniques, produce a digital montage using elements from a minimum of 2 and a maximum of 5 digital files. Use components that you have shot yourself, rather than found images for this part.

 

Photograph One:

Photograph Two: 

Photography Three: 

Photograph Four: 

 

Experiments: 

I decided to experiment with some of the portraits I didn’t use for the final choices or some I had spare copies of. Taking inspiration from the artists/photographers I researched prior to this, I decided to try some of their techniques. 

Self Evaluation

Part One:

For this part of the assignment, I took inspiration from John Stezaker and Nicky Bird. This part of the assignment asks you to use traditional ‘Cut and Paste’ techniques to produce a series of simple photomontages using elements from 2 – 5 original or found photographs. I knew that I didn’t want to cut up any of my own personal family photographs, as I didn’t have the heart to cut up family photographs. Therefore, I knew that my research of Nicky Bird, and her found photographs would be an ideal place to start this assignment. I decided to look on the selling site eBay, in order to purchase old, vintage portrait photographs that were unwanted. I did focus on portraits that were similar in posture, colouring and age, as I wanted to make sure that once they were in front of me, ready to cut up, that they would match and fit together better.

Taking inspiration from Stezaker, I also purchased an old, vintage book, containing portraits of old film stars and celebrities. Stezaker combines portraits of celebrities together to produce one final portrait, and also cuts and pastes old postcards onto portraits. In order to be different, but still follow in Stezaker’s footsteps, I thought that by cutting and pasting famous celebrities portraits, together with portraits of ‘regular’ people, I would be able to making interesting final images. Even in our modern society, celebrities are idolised and looked up to for their looks and fashion, and it would have been the same in the years before. We as a society are constantly told that celebrities are better than us, more beautiful and that we will never be able to achieve that level of ‘beauty and perfection’. By combining the celebrities portraits with those of ‘regular people’, I could show that were are all similar. From our facial features, shapes of our faces, eyes, hair, clothing, the way we laugh or smile to the way we sit. 

Once I had my collection of portrait photographs in front of me, I didn’t have the heart to cut them up. I found it somewhat disrespectful in a way, that I didn’t have the right to cut up someone’s portrait photograph. This obviously posed an issue for me, as the whole point of this assignment was to cut and paste photographs together. I decided to photograph each portrait, and have them re-printed. By doing so, I could then cut and paste the re-printed portrait photographs together whilst keeping the original portrait photographs safe. 

I sat for several days on Photoshop, placing portraits together and spent time looking at facial features, their similarities and differences, the posture of the sitter within the photograph, the colours and textures, before finally deciding on the photographs I would pair together, and where I would be cutting them. 

I am happy with the final outcome for Part One of this assignment. I found it hard to choose one favourite, as I believe they are all unique and interesting in their own way, however, my overall favourite final photographs would be numbers One, Seven and Eight. I believe these to be the strongest of the set, as I was able to match their facial features better, leading to more ‘realistic’ portrait, despite being produced from two photographs. 

Update after receiving my tutors feedback: Answering my tutors questions

You write in your Learning Log about Stezaker’s work, ‘He couples both the male and female portraits together, creating unique and interesting final portraits.’
But what is it that is unique and interesting? I would be particularly interested to know how you think the reading or interpretation of the images you made change from the original portraits after they have been combined with the portraits of the stars. Do you feel they might comment on the transformative effect of fame, or gender and even transgender, with the male/female combinations? And what impact you think your images might have on a viewer?

Response:

For this assignment, I wanted to combine the original portraits with those of the stars, as I wanted to show that we are all the same. I wanted to focus on combining similar facial features and similar positions within the frame. I wanted the viewer to question who the celebrities were and who the non-celebrities were.

These photographs could also be seen as exploring the transition from a ‘regular’ person, to a well known star and highlighting their ‘Before and After’. Even now, celebrities all started from nowhere and were just your ‘average, regular person’, but with the transformative effect of fame, many celebrities don’t look like they used to before they were famous. Some have changed their overall appearance, with plastic surgery or clothing, hair and makeup, where as some may have changed genders completely and may now be transgender or part of LGBTQ+.

John Stezaker titles his combined portraits as ‘Marriage’, and I suppose you could explore my photographs as being part of a marriage too. A marriage between two people, whether it is man – woman, man – man, woman – woman or part of LGBTQ+. These combined portrait photographs show that in a partnership or a marriage, two people eventually become one. 

Another reading of these photographs could be highlighting a familial similarity. None of these people are related, yet they share facial features that are similar which enabled me to combine their portraits together well. I have seen similar on social media, where portraits are taken of a grandchild, similar to one of their grandparent taken at the same age they are now, and they merge the two together, showing how similar the family generations are when a photograph is taken of them at the same age for example, both in their 20’s or 30’s. 

Part Two 

For part two, I decided to continue with the portrait theme, and used digital montage techniques to produce a digital montage using elements from a minimum of 2 and a maximum of 5 digital files. Taking inspiration from John Stezaker, Andrew Lundwall and Marcelo Monreal, I decided to make four similar portraits. Two that combined portraits together, and two that combined a portrait with cut and paste flowers. I am happy with how they turned out overall. If I was to re-do this part of the assignment, I would spend more time on photograph one and four, and refine the edges of the digital cuts as they are shaky and not cut straight. I am pleased with the outcome of photograph two and four, they have turned out exactly as I had imagined. Again, if I had the time, I would try and refine some of the edges, especially around the digital cuts made to the facial area, as these aren’t as crisp as I had hoped.  

 

References: 

Stezaker, John.

Marriage LXI, Marriage II, Pair XXII, 2010. John Stezaker – Artist – Saatchi Gallery (Accessed 31/01/2018)

Bird, Nicky.

Question for Seller photographs taken directly from nickybird.com. Photographs are copyrighted to Nicky Bird. ( I have only included them for research purposes, which the OCA advised was ok )

[1] Quote taken directly from website NickyBird.com

https://nickybird.com/projects/question-for-seller/   ( Accessed 31/01/2018 )

http://artdaily.com/news/18960/Question-for-Seller—Nicky-Bird#.Wp3Ct0x2vIV    ( Accessed 31/01/2018 ) 

Assignment One: Combined Image – Photographer Research

Produce either a series of 4 – 6 portraits ( looking at Stezaker and Stenram ), or a series of 4 – 6 landscape based images based on your immediate surroundings ( as with Gill’s Hackney Marshes series )

John Stezaker

John Stezaker is an English conceptual artist, who was born in 1949. In 1973, Stezaker graduated with a Higher Diploma in Fine Art, from The Slade School of Art, in London.

He creates surreal collages, made from found images such as old photographs, vintage postcards, old film stills and old publicity photographs. He gives old images new meanings. In the series Marriage, he gathers found images of famous film stars, from their old publicity shots. Using traditional cut and paste techniques, to an uncomfortable effect, he then cuts the portraits in half, in order to overlap the two portraits, where he then pastes them together, forcing connections between the previously unconnected images. He couples both the male and female portraits together, creating unique and interesting final portraits. Stezaker suggests that the identities created in these publicity shots are both constructed and infinitely interchangeable. This can also be seen in his Untitled series of portraits.

I really like Stezaker’s Marriage series of portraits and his Untitled portraits. I find them extremely unusual and unique, and I myself have not seen portraits like these before. What I admire the most, is that Stezaker doesn’t just cut and paste any old portrait together, hoping that they will ‘fit’ and ‘match’ together. You can see from his work, that he actually sits and looks at the individual portraits, before he cuts them. He takes time to compare certain facial shapes and features, so that when he cuts a portrait a certain way, they will match in certain areas, such as the nose or eyes, when he overlaps them and pastes them together. He has a very skilled eye and can see how his final image will look if he cuts the photograph a certain way. This is something I hope I can learn from this assignment, when creating my final images.

I watched Stezaker during an interview for the Tate Triennial 2006 video, where he talks about his work, and what influences him. In regards to why he creates collages, he quoted,

” Collage allows the opening up of the unconscious in a way that is very direct, and I think that is why surrealism, immediately latched onto it….In a way it is a kind of  way of recognising a particular space we all live in, that we kind of don’t accept we live in” [1] 

When asked why he works with found images, he quoted,

” I think that all artists have to face that we live in a culture of images, we don’t have any special province of images. What I found surprising when I started out as an art student, was how few artists really acknowledge that whole reservoir of images that we live in, and it felt to me to be an imperative to do so, partly to be true about the fact that I am formed by that culture of images, and therefore I cannot pretend I’m not when I’m being an artist somehow. You can’t stand away from yourself and say this is the pure artistic me, and that’s the one who sits and watches tv, And it was to do with trying to bridge that gap in some way between the two. And over the years, I made it uniquely what I do, and that was more radical, that step.” [2]

Andrew Lundwall

Not much background information can be found regarding Lundwall and his work, however, Andrew Lundwall is a photographer from New York. He was introduced to photography and the collage medium, when he was at school. He hasn’t been working with collage for long, however, he prefers to use found image, roughly from the pre-1980’s. His work is similar to Stezaker, where he cut and pastes different parts of portraits. My personal favourite of his work is “untitled”, 2012, Other/ Multi disciplinary, Collage, which can be found here: https://www.artdoxa.com/AndrewLundwall/large?page=2#92476

With this collage portrait, he has cut and paste two vintage, women’s portraits, however, instead of the sharp half cut portrait Stezaker uses, Lundwall has cut strips out of one portrait and has overlapped the strips onto the portrait underneath, and around the edges. I really admire this technique, as it is completely different to Stezaker, however, they are somewhat similar. I will try this technique when creating images for this assignment.

In regards to other portraits he has produced, it appears as though he uses digital processing software. These portraits in particular have geometric shapes on them, which contain approximately two or three different cut pieces of portraits. He places the geometric shapes, on-top of the portrait underneath, similarly to Stezaker, but places them so that you are still able to see the facial features where they should be on the face. This is a very interesting technique and is something I will try in the future.

 

Julie Cockburn

Julie Cockburn was born in 1966. She studied at the Chelsea College of Art and Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. She now lives and works in London, and has exhibited her work extensively in the UK, Europe and the USA.

Similarly to Stezaker and Lundwall, Cockburn gives meaning to old photographs, by using found images, such as old vintage portrait photographs, and she reimagines them through cutting and pasting them, making collages and even embroidering them. ‘Her work is best defined by its delicate craftsmanship and by the transformation of everyday and found objects into works of art’.

There are several portraits which are similar to the artists above, where she uses the cut and paste techniques, for example photographs Teenage Angst 2013, No Means No ( Woman ) 2012, No Means No  ( Man ) 2012 and Dubiety 2012. However, her other portraits are completely different to the cut and paste techniques I have seen from Stezaker and Lundwall. What strikes me first when I saw her images, is the pop of colour, which is extremely bold especially against the old, vintage black and white or sepia tones. When I inspected her work closer, I was fascinated to see that each dot or geometric shape, is made up from hand embroidery, and not from digital processing. I would love to know how to has been able to hand embroider old photograph paper, as it can either be really delicate or quite tough, almost like card. What I admire about her dot work, is that, similarly to Stezaker, she has an eye for detail and places the ‘dot’ carefully around the person in the portrait, in order for us to still ‘see’ the portrait underneath, for example photograph The Conundrum 2016, The Dahlia Effect 2014 and Morphine 2014. 

For this assignment, I may try and create several portraits with the ‘dots’, however, I won’t be hand embroidering them, I may try using another type of material.

 

Marcelo Monreal

Marcelo Monreal is a Brazilian digital collage artist, based in Santa Catarina, Brazil. His collages are completely different to the three artists above, however, the concept of making a collage/photomontage from several photographs, is something they all have in common. Monreal’s newest, surreal series of work is called Faces [UN]bonded. Using digital techniques, he splits apart photographs of famous celebrities faces, where he then pastes beautiful flowers and leaves within the broken facial areas, some of which have small flowers and leaves growing from behind eye sockets and broken areas.

Monreal expresses that people do not often tell us who they really are, instead, they keep parts of their real selves hidden. With the series Faces [UN]bonded, he opens the person up with his collages, and reveals the rare moments in which we see the beauty behind their appearance.

I find his portraits really beautiful, and similarly to Cockburn, the colour is what caught my attention. His choice of colours and flowers, appear to be very vintage in style, and the flowers do not appear to be photographs of flowers, but they look as though they may possibly be digitally drawn. They remind me of old vintage floral wallpaper, or the sketches of flowers you would find in botanical books with the Latin names of the plants underneath. He uses a lot of different types of flowers and leaves within his images, however, they do not over power the portrait at all and I believe they enhance it somewhat.

For this assignment, I am hoping to use some of his digital techniques in order to produce some portraits similar to his.

Researching these artists has given me a lot of inspiration and I will be using techniques from all of them in order to produce my final images for this assignment. Each artist has produced different ‘types’ of photomontages and collages, and therefore, I am hoping that by experimenting with the techniques they use, I will learn a lot about how photomontage and collage can be completely different and unique, depending on the individual and their own personal expression, when making the images.

I have referenced all of the artists work below and have included the links, where you can view their work and the photographs they have produced.

 

References: 

Stezaker, John. 

https://theapproach.co.uk/artists/john-stezaker/images/     ( Accessed 26/01/2018 )

http://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/john_stezaker.htm    ( Accessed 26/01/2018 ) 

http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/video/tate-triennial-2006-john-stezaker                        ( Accessed 26/01/2018 ) 

[1] Quote taken directly from Tate Triennial 2006 interview video, with John Stezaker.

[2] Quote taken directly from Tate Triennial 2006 interview video, with John Stezaker.

Lundwall, Andrew. 

https://www.artdoxa.com/AndrewLundwall/large?page=2   (  Accessed 26/01/2018 )

Cockburn, Julie. 

https://www.flowersgallery.com/artists/view/julie-cockburn?page=5    ( Accessed 26/01/2018 )

https://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/print-sales/our-artists/julie-cockburn   ( Accessed 26/01/2018 )

Monreal, Marcelo.

http://www.contemporaryartcurator.com/marcelo-monreal/ ( Accessed 26/01/2018 ) ( Page won’t load from this link – Please try typing it into google )

http://www.beautifuldecay.com/2015/04/07/marcelo-monreals-surreal-collages-replace-insides-beautiful-blooms/   ( Accessed 26/01/2018 )

https://www.instagram.com/marcelomonreal/   ( Accessed 26/01/2018 )