Friday, October 8, 2010
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
RICHARD ORJIS
Richard Orjis was born in Wanganui, New Zealand. He did his undergrad study at the Auckland University of Technology and in Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh doing a BVA in 2001. Then went on to graduate with an MFA from The Elam School of Fine Arts (University of Auckland) in 2006.
He has also lived in New York where he worked for photographer and film maker David LaChapelle and collaborated on several projects with Cuban American artist Anthony Goicolea.
Richard Orjis looks into Nature/culture, at different stages creating his own "cult". He also digs into surface vs. substance. With these themes creative control and manipulation is a very important part of the process of making his works.
A flow chart Richard showed us: explains how everthing kind of fits together and works into each other...
Nature – culture – spells- rituals - sacred objects - social groupings- art - religion- science,
-western art history – pop culture – film, music, fashion, television, magazine…
On the work oh His that was "cult-like"...
Orjis states he tries to work 'intuitively'…
This below work looks into fatherhood, linking it with art history.
Looking into art history, like the famous "Madonna and child"… mother and child. Maternal.
It is also inspired by heavy metal album covers. This work he has also manipulated on photshop. The candles weren't actually in the photo. Manipulation is a big part of Richard Orjis' work as I will go into later.
"All his work is designed to illustrated non-existent, shadowy social groups, engaged in ambiguous activity. They appear to be a group of Europeans who have gone feral in a tropical jungle. Covered wholly or partially in mud, they stare dully out at the camera through elaborate necklaces and garlands of brightly coloured, sensuous flowers. Phallic and vulval forms dominate the arrangements (pitcher plants and orchids). The figures are passive and unthreatening, but also generate frissons of evil and madness and exert a horrid fascination." - Quote on Richard Orjis from Wikipedia.
The work of Richard Orjis' graduation work was "My Empire of Dust".
Using mud and water, he did series of works on paper depicting semi-clad figures. Some scenes were set in woodland, and the heads of some figures seemed to have morphed into 'grotesque' wood galls while others wore helmets. In this work He looks into beauty vs grotesque and also just using nature as a medium, which is a recurring theme throughout Orjis' works.
Another cool work was where Orjis got 60 people to be involved in the work at an art gallery in Christchurch. Involving rubbing themselves in coal and getting their photo's taken all looking in the same directions…... He would then go on to manipulate the photos on photoshop and add a red mask - which he says "seperates them from reality"... "Coal, it’s a fuel, but it could be diamonds…"
Another statement I heard him make was something like "The coal of Christchurch..bringing up stuff from under the surface..."
This exhibition also involved a car fulled with flowers from local botanical gardens,creating this idea of either a hertz (symbolizing life and death), or a traveling greenhouse..
All of his ideas seem to be linked between nature and "cults"/religions...
On Nature and Beauty (Surface vs. substance)
A lot of his works are based around religion of some type… “I realy like that Idea that I am connected with everything around me"...
Orjis says he doesn’t believe in modernism… "we are always connected to something else"… Moses, bible, burning tree, tree huggers, decorating trees at Christmas time..
These works reminded me of a modern day version of Arcimboldo's vegetable faces work. Arccimboldo was an artist from Milan (1527). His portraits of human heads are made up of vegetables, fruit sea creatures and tree roots/ based on fascination.
It also kind of reminded me of what Steve Rood said in last weeks lecture, about people becoming sick of drawing and painting, and turning to photogrpahy...
Like a modern version of Arccimboldo's work, but made with photogrpahy. This also shows the way Orjis has made the most of creative control and manipulation. As the process he used to make the work for his masters was quite simple, just starting with the photograph of his subject (portrait) then he would go on to edit it and add in the parts of nature on photoshop.
I like this part of his work, different because so unnatural, but looks natural because done in a photography medium, unlike painting because painting can just be "fantasy like", but photography makes his work seem more 'real' because thats what photogrpahy does.
These works contained alot of flowers. Orjis stated that the orchid represents sexuality.
He used gorse, as in New Zealand it has a thing about identity...
Gorse a weed we want to get rid off, but Orjis then brought it into the context where we look at the beauty of the flower…
Posing the question, What is NZ’s identity? Over and over again we search for this in politics.
Had always enjoyed art for the way it is, cant be only surface, has to be more, surface beauty, attracts bee, but the substance behind it, is that flower wants to reproduce, the most beautiful flower will get pollinated more… has to have surface beauty for people to want to speand more time with it etc… cool idea…
On Creative control and manipulation...
The Spineless Nancy Pelosi By Salvador Dali...
Orjis mentioned Salvdor Dali- an aritst that put's opposite things together. He did this in some of his works - using french sticks then poking candles in them...
This is part of the public work Orjis did at te Tuhi. He said He was sick of the negative stuff and wanted to do something "affirming"... What's funny is that he got the text from a cult called Heaven's gate. ( A very strange cult)... haha, I like this work though, and the way he has used manipulation to make it simple, but effective and able to speak to you in a few seconds while driving past.
The Main conceptsof Richard Orjis' work were:
nature vs culture:
The natural and the artificial:
The beautiful and the grotesque:
Community and individualism:
Richard Orjis on art: "… all art is a lie that tells us the truth…"
By studying Richard Orjis' work we learn to look at nature in a way that can help us "look at the visual world"...We realize that objects are communicating with us all the time…This inspires me to look at what I do with the way I interpret how people are, things they wear, what they say etc, idea of communication..
He has also lived in New York where he worked for photographer and film maker David LaChapelle and collaborated on several projects with Cuban American artist Anthony Goicolea.
Richard Orjis looks into Nature/culture, at different stages creating his own "cult". He also digs into surface vs. substance. With these themes creative control and manipulation is a very important part of the process of making his works.
A flow chart Richard showed us: explains how everthing kind of fits together and works into each other...
Nature – culture – spells- rituals - sacred objects - social groupings- art - religion- science,
-western art history – pop culture – film, music, fashion, television, magazine…
On the work oh His that was "cult-like"...
Orjis states he tries to work 'intuitively'…
This below work looks into fatherhood, linking it with art history.
Looking into art history, like the famous "Madonna and child"… mother and child. Maternal.
It is also inspired by heavy metal album covers. This work he has also manipulated on photshop. The candles weren't actually in the photo. Manipulation is a big part of Richard Orjis' work as I will go into later.
"All his work is designed to illustrated non-existent, shadowy social groups, engaged in ambiguous activity. They appear to be a group of Europeans who have gone feral in a tropical jungle. Covered wholly or partially in mud, they stare dully out at the camera through elaborate necklaces and garlands of brightly coloured, sensuous flowers. Phallic and vulval forms dominate the arrangements (pitcher plants and orchids). The figures are passive and unthreatening, but also generate frissons of evil and madness and exert a horrid fascination." - Quote on Richard Orjis from Wikipedia.
The work of Richard Orjis' graduation work was "My Empire of Dust".
Using mud and water, he did series of works on paper depicting semi-clad figures. Some scenes were set in woodland, and the heads of some figures seemed to have morphed into 'grotesque' wood galls while others wore helmets. In this work He looks into beauty vs grotesque and also just using nature as a medium, which is a recurring theme throughout Orjis' works.
Another cool work was where Orjis got 60 people to be involved in the work at an art gallery in Christchurch. Involving rubbing themselves in coal and getting their photo's taken all looking in the same directions…... He would then go on to manipulate the photos on photoshop and add a red mask - which he says "seperates them from reality"... "Coal, it’s a fuel, but it could be diamonds…"
Another statement I heard him make was something like "The coal of Christchurch..bringing up stuff from under the surface..."
This exhibition also involved a car fulled with flowers from local botanical gardens,creating this idea of either a hertz (symbolizing life and death), or a traveling greenhouse..
All of his ideas seem to be linked between nature and "cults"/religions...
On Nature and Beauty (Surface vs. substance)
A lot of his works are based around religion of some type… “I realy like that Idea that I am connected with everything around me"...
Orjis says he doesn’t believe in modernism… "we are always connected to something else"… Moses, bible, burning tree, tree huggers, decorating trees at Christmas time..
These works reminded me of a modern day version of Arcimboldo's vegetable faces work. Arccimboldo was an artist from Milan (1527). His portraits of human heads are made up of vegetables, fruit sea creatures and tree roots/ based on fascination.
It also kind of reminded me of what Steve Rood said in last weeks lecture, about people becoming sick of drawing and painting, and turning to photogrpahy...
Like a modern version of Arccimboldo's work, but made with photogrpahy. This also shows the way Orjis has made the most of creative control and manipulation. As the process he used to make the work for his masters was quite simple, just starting with the photograph of his subject (portrait) then he would go on to edit it and add in the parts of nature on photoshop.
I like this part of his work, different because so unnatural, but looks natural because done in a photography medium, unlike painting because painting can just be "fantasy like", but photography makes his work seem more 'real' because thats what photogrpahy does.
These works contained alot of flowers. Orjis stated that the orchid represents sexuality.
He used gorse, as in New Zealand it has a thing about identity...
Gorse a weed we want to get rid off, but Orjis then brought it into the context where we look at the beauty of the flower…
Posing the question, What is NZ’s identity? Over and over again we search for this in politics.
Had always enjoyed art for the way it is, cant be only surface, has to be more, surface beauty, attracts bee, but the substance behind it, is that flower wants to reproduce, the most beautiful flower will get pollinated more… has to have surface beauty for people to want to speand more time with it etc… cool idea…
On Creative control and manipulation...
The Spineless Nancy Pelosi By Salvador Dali...
Orjis mentioned Salvdor Dali- an aritst that put's opposite things together. He did this in some of his works - using french sticks then poking candles in them...
This is part of the public work Orjis did at te Tuhi. He said He was sick of the negative stuff and wanted to do something "affirming"... What's funny is that he got the text from a cult called Heaven's gate. ( A very strange cult)... haha, I like this work though, and the way he has used manipulation to make it simple, but effective and able to speak to you in a few seconds while driving past.
The Main conceptsof Richard Orjis' work were:
nature vs culture:
The natural and the artificial:
The beautiful and the grotesque:
Community and individualism:
Richard Orjis on art: "… all art is a lie that tells us the truth…"
By studying Richard Orjis' work we learn to look at nature in a way that can help us "look at the visual world"...We realize that objects are communicating with us all the time…This inspires me to look at what I do with the way I interpret how people are, things they wear, what they say etc, idea of communication..
Friday, October 1, 2010
STEVE ROOD:
OKEY DOKEY... As you can see in the above works, Steve has a very diverse quality spread over his works, so for this blog I will focus on the aspects of his work I found most inspiring and how he has been influenced by the history of photogrpahy and visual arts.
I think Steve Rood has a very interesting background. He appealed to me, especially after I heard he had studied in Holland and worked in Italy! :)
He started out with a passion for film making, then somehow ended up as a fashion photographer in Milan, then decided he needed an 'education' so went and studied in Holland. Then became an 'advertiser photographer'. He then discovered didn’t like adverstising, liked ideas but not the 'business' of it. He has also done work as an art director.
Something cool I first heard was that his last name 'Rood' means red in english, so he has used as a theme throughout his works.
He stated that when he was little he lit a fire to compost, from then he has associated photography with something 'weird' as this...
He also has an actual fire extinquisher as his card, which once people get they won't throw out.
I throughouly enjoyed all of his work, however his photography work I found was absolutley stunning. Many of his works use over exposure as an effect, He stated that a theme most of his work is based on is "reduction". This is shown in the way he used an "unfocsued" effect and overexposure. Some of his works (e.g the work he did for shoe designers) is kept nice and simple.
Birth, sex and death…overexposed and out of focused… theme about reduction…
Leave lots of room for text… versatility…
Some of His influences (the ones I could catch) were:
Led zeppelin, andy Warhol, apocoplypes, Lichenstein, DADA.
Also this quote by Mary Boone.
"Quality first, and foremost,
Has to do with authentic radical posistion,
it has to do with obsession,
it has to do with clearly defined and exclusive.
I mean intellectually exclusive, ideals, and it has to do with spirituality…"
What do you want to be known as – in the way of your specialism??
He states many of his works are "Kinda feminine products, that have a natural aspect to them…" but that being specilized doesn’t mean hooked up to work for life…
Also that the more "outlandish" they were the better…
The aestetic of his works are really amazing, I was like wow the whole time...
With his photogrpahy he also discovered he always wanted to "have a light coming towards him"… He would create objects and posistion the lights anywhere… lights that create shadows, his works became about the shadows and not the object…
From this he started to call himself “the shadow man”…
His portraiture works are also very emotive. We see him making photo's of his friends, people who are important to him.. Chuck Close inspired..."trying to be objective as possible and failing miserably, and being happy… "
this other artist I found, I thought fitted in quite well with the portraiture and also technology ... Joseph Kosuth :)
Steve Rood also as a job does design work, because its a "good way to earn money"...He has attracted architects- simply because he was into light and space aspects.
He started out doning cool as stuff for band sites (for free) then got massive jobs for export gold and stuff, business strategy, awesome and inspiring business strategy...
Some other really cool works that inspired me were the digital works that are Interactive.
Including the work he did for his Masters degreee at AUT. The images were all disconnectied (70percent was found imagery)… The idea is that identity of the person is generated through the interaction fo the photoalbum… I found it really interesting to watch, as for every viewer it would bring different feelings and thoughts into their heads.
Something interesting about the idea of media and interaction that has so muched changed the world we lvie in... this guy smule with his Iphone and being able to play flute on it and interact with people all around the world, (to be honest I wasn't sure how exactly this fitted in with his work) but it fitted with the whole revolution of technology and shows how fast technology moves...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhCJq7EAJJA
Some of his other really cool works have been where he has used 'light obscura' and a concave mirror to create works. He also talked a lot about how the history of visual art, the history of photogrpahy and how it is always changing. Which I think shows greatly in his work. He stated that "photography came along because they were deteremind to capture things in a certain way on paper and were sick of drawing…" And now, 150 years later, photography is a blip in the landscape of digital media..
I also liked the work where there were 2 images on a flip coin, and it spinned both ways, creating an image in the viewers mind that wasn't how it originally looked. Rood also stated that moving image is jsut a sequence of stills.
I think this lecture will help me greatly for the moving image breif we are just starting this week in Studio, which is awesome, a cool artist model to research even more.
www.rood.co.nz/talk.
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