Exam 2020 -
Concealment -
"Some photographers create portraits that purposefully hide or disguise sections of the image. Rosanna Jones conceals facial features by overlapping and rearranging parts of the photograph. Wallace Juma partially conceals the identity of the sitter by physically working onto the collaged photographic image. The textile artist Jose Romussi uses stitch and collage to conceal part of the photographic portrait. Pablo Thecuadro creates intricately cut collages from his fashion photographs which often conceal part of a face or figure. Study appropriate sources and produce your own work inspired by Concealment."
Out of multiple possible choices for my 'Externally Set Task', I have chosen 'Concealment'. I have chose this option as after careful reading and research of the other option 'Concealment' was the project that I could imagine myself doing; in terms of enjoyment and the level of responses I could create. One of the artists that really caught my eye and was one of the reasons why I chose this option was Rosanna Jones. Her work inspired some of my ideas and I look forward to creating responses to her work. Another reason why I chose this project as I feel I have knowledge from previous projects. For portraiture, I have knowledge from one of my past projects 'Unusual Portraiture' and to conceal things, I have knowledge from 'Abstraction'. The ideas I have gained from this is to cut out and adjust the positioning of facial characteristics or familiar objects. One method that I would like to use to create concealed portraits or images, is through burning areas of the face which would create an interesting effect on the photograph.
Ideas -
Artist Research -
Rosanna Jones -
Rosanna Jones is an English fashion photographer. She is known for her subtle and unusual portraits which conceal areas of the face. I really like her portraits as she has used more traditional and manual techniques to reach her final results, such as; collage and simply tearing paper. This creates a very homemade look to her work as you can see the rough edges of the paper. Another thing that I like about her work is the lighting and colour scheme of her work. It's a very warm colour palette that is very comfortable and not particularly polarising like some blue lights could be. The way she has concealed her portraits is also very interesting to me due to subtleness of it. In some of her portraits you may have to look twice to notice what Jones has done. For example, in the second photograph it is not immediately obvious what she has done to manipulate the photograph. One idea I have gained from her work would be to burn the paper and let the fire itself consume and manipulate the work rather than myself do it with purpose. The burnt ridges and edges of the paper could aid me in replicating the authentic, homemade look in Jones' work.
This is an image from the work of Rosanna Jones that relates to my sub theme of Concealment. In the image, we see two simply composed images that have been cut at certain positions and stuck together to create an edge through the image. The use of compiling two different images has concealed certain areas of each images respectively. To reach this, the artist has used what seems to be collage and sellotaping the two images together. This creates an authentic feel to the images you can see the ridges, edges and textures where the image has been cut, stuck or ripped.
The image has been taken at a relatively normal angle, however Jones has created two different images by making the subject rotate their head. By not taking the exact same image, Jones has repeated certain facial characteristics in the image. For example, we can see his lips twice and his eyes don't exactly line up. This creates an interesting image. |
These are my responses to the work of Rosanna Jones. For this work, I researched her techniques and methods to reach my response, her chosen method a lot is collage. In this I used a scalpel to cut out areas of the face. For example, in the first I cut the image in half creating the effect that the image has been ripped in half. In the second I removed the face entirely which was me incorporating some of my own ideas and some influence from the work of Jones. In the third I layered two different images of Rebecca. I used her own face to conceal part of the images below. I would like to refine these images by making them more unique and incorporate more of my ideas as I feel these are to much of a 'replica'. While I like these images, I would want them to be more my work. I am going to do this through either burning the paper or weaving the image.
These are my second responses to the work of Rosanna Jones. In these, I used collage, like Jones, yet I incorporated some more of my own ideas. For example, I expanded on my idea of removing the person from the frame entirely. To do this I used my own images and used a scalpel to remove/obscure them from the image. Another idea that I had was to use the cut out section of the image but instead use it as a silhouette. This can be seen in the third image. In the fifth image, you can see the cut out sections of the image. Instead of throwing the cuts away, I compiled them together to create a collage of faces and figures.
This is me incorporating a lot more of my ideas. In these, I used my own photographs and used the 'Lasso Tool' to cut out the figures of the people in the photo. I then filled the gaps with vibrant colours to create the images. I gained some inspiration from the work of Olafur Ellason, who has work which contain vibrant silhouettes which emphasises the people. As in the others, I use negative space to shift focus on the background, while in these the colours draw your attention back.
That is a screenshot of the processes I used on Photoshop to reach my final response. Using Photoshop proved far more efficient and easy, yet it loses that homemade, more tactile feel that my other responses had. To distance this from a 'softer' image, I chose vibrant colours that pop from the image. Unlike the other images, it shifts the focus back onto the people yet leaves an abstract image.
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Wallace Juma -
Wallace Juma is a Kenyan artist and photographer. He is known for his use of an array of materials and techniques to reach his final portraits. I really like his portraits as they conceal certain areas of the face and completely remove some characteristics entirely. I also like the style in which he has drawn the faces as they are not accurate but instead, are stylised. I also like how the form of the faces have been drawn out with lines and the direction of the lines represent the forms and the shape of the face, almost giving a 3-Dimensional feel to the images. Another thing that interests me about the work is the rustic feel of it, the used feel that comes with it. One way that I could respond to his work is through fragmenting areas of the face.
This is some work of Wallace Juma that relates to the theme of Concealment that I have chosen. In the image, Juma has simplified the face with lines. This conceals the actual shape of the face and in the work we are provided with only the basic facial characteristics; eyes, mouth and nose. This has been done through drawing lines that vaguely follow the contours and shape of the face. This gives a slightly manipulated version of the face as it doesn't follow the shape of the face exactly. Hair in the images are also removed. It has a slightly cramped composition with the extremities of the face reaching the edge of the frame. This only gives some negative space in each corner of the image. However on some areas, he doesn't draw lines at all. For example, under the eyes. This could show shadows. In the work, I assume he has based it off of an image with a relatively simple composition.
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These are my initial responses to the work of Wallace Juma. In these photos, I used Photoshop to fragment and manipulate areas of the face. For example, in the third image I used the 'twirl' tool to manipulate and edit the face. I then removed slits from the face, like the work of Juma. In the second, I removed triangles from the face and layered them, to give facial characteristics of the face yet some are still removed. In the first I experimented a bit more by inverting certain aspects of the face.
This is a screenshot of the processes I used. On Photoshop, I used the magnetic lasso tool and polygonal lasso tool to remove areas of the face. This proved far easier then the process of collage, however I feel using collage would have made more of a realistic homage to the work of Juma. I also used the invert tool to invert certain areas which give the image some more variety in terms of colour. We can see this in the contrast between the peach and turquoise on the polo shirt.
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Jose Rumussi -
Jose Rumussi is a Chilean artist who works in Berlin, Germany. He is known for his frequent use of embroidery where he blends techniques and methods to reach his work. For example, in the images I have chosen of his that relate to concealment, he applies embroidery on top of photographs to hide areas of the face. In some images, he has used embroidery to replicate areas of the face. Like in the first image, he has used different materials to show that. The work feels very cubist to me and some of his work reminds me of a modern version of the work of the cubist work of Picasso. This is as on the areas of embroidery, he simplifies the facial features to shape and assigns a colour to the feature. In the first, the eyes are a red string and the mouth is black. I could respond to the work of Romussi, by attempting some embroidery work of my own and I could incorporate some of my own ideas also.
This is the work of Jose Rumussi that relates to my chosen theme of Concealment. Rumussi's work feels very cubist to me as it uses shapes and colour to obscure and simplify the face. In his images, he uses embroidery to conceal the face. He uses a range of shapes to achieve this. In some works, he will simplify facial characteristics with shapes. For example, use circles to represent eyes or a black rectangle to represent the mouth. He has also used a range of textures and colours to create an abstract image. Another thing that I have noticed is how he has left the ends of the thread on the image. This creates more of an authentic feeling image which compliments the messy hair. This feels cubist to me, as in Picasso's cubist work, he doesn't have strict lines and angles like the work of Rumussi which doesn't have accurate embroidery.
I really like his work due to the embroidery as it feels authentic and analog rather than digital. |
These are my initial responses to the work of Jose Rumussi. In this, I used some previous work from my responses to Rosanna Jones. In the first, I used embroidery, to draw triangles that bridge the gap in the image. In the second response, I threaded lines between each side of the silhouette. In my next response, I would like to create more of an impression where it looks like stitches, that the thread has been used to close something or fix something.
In these images, I used the edited images that I took over half term. In the work I gained inspiration from Rosanna Jones as I split the images in half, and then in response to Jumussi, I used embroidery to stitch the two images together. In the third, I took a more ordered approach to how I stitched the image together, whereas in the second, I took more random, hectic approach. My favourite of the three images is the hectic one as I really like the composition of the two different images of different people stuck together.
This is me further developing my ideas. To a chive the final outcome, I used the photocopier and scanned the images over and over with different colour filters. This achieves the glitchy feel as you see the outline of some faces on top of others. This gives a cluttered composition which has no negative space. The colours I used were only primary colours. The use of overlaying the colours creates some areas of dark and light in the image. On top of this, I stitched in a on top of the image, following lines and the shape of the face. In the third image, I scanned in the backside of the image which I thought looked cool as it is a simply line drawing of the faces. The other strands of thread that aren't necessarily part of the face creates a nice aesthetic.
Manny Robertson -
Manny Robertson is a fashion photographer. I have chosen to research his work as I feel it relates a lot to the general theme of concealment and my own themes as I have used embroidery frequently. I really like his work as it conceals the face using an image of the face from a different angle. He also changes the tone of the image. He then uses embroidery to attach/stitch the two images together. Robertson also attaches the eyes together with embroidery. This makes the two faces feel attached. The composition is also simple as it is a general portrait.
Tate Modern Vist -
Dora Maar -
On our visit to the Tate Modern, we many visited exhibits, however one exhibit that stood out was the work of the critically acclaimed artist and photographer, Dora Maar. The three images that I have uploaded to my website, are the ones that I feel were particularly relevant to my chosen topic of 'Concealment'. In these photos, we see Maar manually alter the images through traditional methods, such as collage and photograms. I particularly like the third one as it is subtly humorous and it takes a second to understand what has been altered in the photo. I would like to respond to Maar's work through manually manipulating and concealing some photographs of my own.
General Work -
This is work that I found during a general exploration of the Tate. It felt particularly relevant as it has concealed the eyes of the face with images of nature. I really like this work as the black and white images contrast with the green images on top. I would like to respond to this by using photoshop and replacing the aspects of clothes with random images of scenery.
Photos -
This is my first photo shoot for the 2020 Exam. In this photoshoot I experimented with ways of concealing areas of the face. I tried to use household objects and things in the house to cut the face in half. For example, I used the doors in my house to cut the face in half. Another way that I did it was through books and bowls and how when you are either reading or eating, it can conceal areas on the face. I really like these photographs as they feel natural and I have subtly concealed the face. I have refined these images on Adobe Lightroom through adjusting the contrast and exposure. I have also added grain into the photo to give a 'vintage' feel to the photograph. One way that I could develop these is I could in a future photoshoot, I could use more interesting objects to make the images feel less natural. I could also use Photoshop to manipulate the images too.
This is a screenshot of the adjustments and edits I made. I adjusted the exposure and reduced the shadows on some to create a lighter, welcoming image as the natural lighting at home was a bit blue and the initial images came out cold. I also saturated the images to again make the colours more vibrant, so the whole image wasn't blue. The warm colour palette I used was partially inspired by the palette of the Rosanna Jones' images. The reason why I added grain waste give a old feeling to the photos. It is also an aesthetic that I like.
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Half Term Photos -
In these images, I attempted to conceal areas of the face with either focus, framing or obscuring it entirely with the face of another subject. This is my second take on obscuring the face with natural things. For example, in the first photo if my sister were not in the background it would be an ordinary portrait, however by placing my sister behind him, I am concealing her through positing and focus. I also really like the fifth image as I used the silhouette and figure of my parents to conceal my sister. In that image, I tried replicating the feeling of being lost as a child in a crowd of people. I also refined these images by adjusting the temperature and saturation, making the images more cold rather than warm.
These images I have done by taking two separate portraits and sticking them together on Photoshop. I like these images, as I have concealed one part of the face but replaced it with another. This creates an almost glitch like feel to the images as there is a line in the image which divides the two faces.
Blurred Images -
In these images, I went against a rule of photography, which is to keep your hand steady while taking the photo. So in the photos, I moved my hands and decreased the shutter speed. This created a blurred effect which concealed areas of the face. I like these images, as they are "rebelling" against the conventions of photography. To develop these images further, I could experiment with lights.
Pixel Images -
To conceal faces and objects in these images, I used the mosaic tool on Photoshop. I like these images as it conceals expression and feeling of the subjects but you still have a good understanding of the composition and the mood of the images. To improve, I could develop it by keeping some areas without pixelising them. This would reveals some information, but not all.
In these images, I used the mosaic feature and then to create a more stylised feel, I separated the squares with black lines. This, like the pixel work conceals the photo, but it is also stylised and interesting with the lines. With the grid it creates this image where I am further removing the reality of the image. In the second, while experimenting, I inverted the colours of the image and this conceals it even further. However, I do feel that the second image is so far removed that it feels more abstract and doesn't relate back to the photo.