Documenting People

In researching art work for this blog, I found it difficult to zone into one particular subject or genre. In documenting people and events, mediums and creative fields changed and crossed over constantly. Various forms of portraits have have found themselves in the bookmarks of my computer, lying in question as to whether they are applicable or not. I have revisited historical works from Jan Van Eycks symbolic masterpiece of The Arnolfini Portrait, to the Picasso’s cubist portraits and Man Ray’s hauntingly beautiful portrayals of life and people through photography. 

Documenting people and their lives is not something new. It has been part of our lives since the first cave paintings some 40,000 years ago. The challenges we face today in how to spread new light on the lives we wish to document. How can I, as an artist, create a new way of seeing? Influences from the past, brought forward onto contemporary subject or concepts will naturally alter the discourse of this visual language. <a

I have been intrigued by the positioning and role of the artist in documenting the life of another, be it through photography, reportage, biographical illustrations, video or painting. If I am to spend time, observing the life of another, will I be part of the journey or am I to be a ghost at the edge. In a number of works I have researched such as Vivian Maier, the positioning of the artist in the composition of the photograph grabbed my attention. It made me question what is important in documenting lives or events, subject over environment, environment over subject or a harmonious balance between both as seen in work of Shin Young An? Where does abstraction of subject/concept begin and where does it end, if one chooses to apply it? How, with the application of this abstraction, is it going to affect the “reader” or viewer of the imagery?

What makes a portrait of someone? Can this idea of portrait be extended to multiples, falling over a serious of individual depictions or is it restricted to a single frame at a time? Camilla Catrambone helps to break the barriers of what a portrait can contain. Her work helped me to understand that there is more to expressing the personalities of an individual or group of people than their faces. That identity can be encapsulated in the world around us. 

In discussing what it is that makes a self-portrait, Mareia Pointon wrote “It offers… an illusion of timelessness, the impression that we can know people other than ourselves…” Pointon, M. (2013) Portrayal; and the search for Identity London, Reaktion. In creating works which tell the story, no matter how brief, of another persons life, I feel it essential to invite the viewer to feel a connection with the individual or to have a reaction.