Nan Goldin quote

"My desire is to preserve the sense of people's lives, to endow them with the strength and beauty I see in them. I want the people in my pictures to stare back." -Nan Goldin

I've been in love with Corinne Day's early 1990's photographs for a few years now due to the realistic nature of her work. Everything in her photos are never set up, she just captures moments of people's lives as they happen. She has the ability to be unseen and able to produce really intimate work from her subjects. I aslo enjoy the work of Nan Goldin as they are pretty similar (see photos below). I feel this could could be apart of my work as my theme is unseen there is a link with documenting what happens behind closed doors.

Browsing through the internet I came across an illustrator named James Jean. From reading the artical from the 'Theme Magazine' he likes to document the things he sees and things that one does not notice. Above are two of his sketches, there are every fluid and expressive. I then went to his website to look at his works but was very disappointed as the sketches are completely different from his works. Overall, I like his sketches and could be of some inspiration at this stage of the project

bird in my hand

When I visited the Tate modern, one of the pieces that I enjoyed the was this image created by the artist Ellen Gallagher. The size of it was impressive and made you want to investigate it more closely. Having known a bit about her work before hand, I knew it was something to do with identity. After reading the information given with the piece, I learnt that there was a strong connection with identity that leads to black slavery days and her consistent reference to race.

Masks and hats

I really like these masks from the 1920's that I randomly found on the internet. Could be a direction to take my final major project with the link to hiding your identity.

I also like this image of hats in the 1920's..

This is my response to the book I am currently reading 'Agent Zig zag' otherwise known as Eddie Chapman. He was born and bred in the heart of London and was always committing crime. It was the time of the second world war and he had enough of the British so he then decided to be a spy for the Germans. The reason I have covered his eye with text is to show that he is a person of many identities. When you look at his eyes, there is a sort of blank and emotionless feel to them.

Im starting to become abit more confident in my choice of brief. Once I started not to think too hard about complicated approaches, I began to have a clear head and have started with simple ideas.
I just now need to decide on my question/s that I am going to ask people to build up a response of identity and my 'un' word 'unseen'.

Lynn Hershman

I came across this artist that mainly uses women and doesn't necessarily fit my work but the way she replaced parts of the human form with objects is interesting. I believe this is done to show that the objects could influence ones personal identity. For example, the decision to use the television for the ladies' head. It is a clear example of t.v influence on a person whether it's to do their appearance or mind.

She also does film and art pieces that are also interesting.

www.lynnhershman.com

Maria Tackmann

This is an other illustrator that I enjoy the work of, Maria Tackmann.
Her work is slightly similar to James Gallagher but I feel has a different approach and meanings. I believe that Tackmann's work is more about the hidden elements within a person and them being revealed or even escaping. For example, the ghostly shadow that is emerging from or behind her could be explaining the girl's fears creeping up on her.
I like the approach and could be a inspiration on how I can explain different feelings and emotions.

My new love..

This piece of work is by an illustrator named James Gallagher. I adore the way he cuts his images and the postitions them on a page beautifully. The fact that all of his images have a eerie effect on the viewer, it completely sucks you in and makes you want to find out more about the people involved.

His work shows a passion for the human form and their personal identities and thats how I feel links with my own project and part of my fascination.

So far, I have been pretty confused to what I am doing for this project but I have decided to do Unseen. I want to look at the hidden things that people keep from anyone on the outside such as habits, alter-egos, thoughts, dreams etc.

Due to my preferred reading genre, biographies. I have grown to enjoy reading about people's lives. Here are some examples of my favourites: