Alexandra

People as Palettes

People as Palettes

Leu Gardens

Final Portfolio w/Artist Statement

 

Artist Statement 

            In today’s urban world, many are taking to their own devices in attempt to express their artistic unrest.  Webster’s Dictionary defines graffiti as “unauthorized writing or drawing on a public surface”.   To the general public, graffiti is most commonly considered to be vandalism, or defacement of public property without consent.  Yet to many, including myself, graffiti can take on an entirely different aesthetic. 

Graffiti, in its very essence, is meant to captivate the public’s attention.    Artists most often use “tags”, modern day pseudonyms, to proclaim their marking of a public surface. It is not these minor and overabundant scribblings that caught my attention, but those unique, vibrant and original works accompanied by an artist’s signature.  The works presented in this series were selected not only for the purpose of representing the vast spectrum of graffiti, but in an attempt to declare the artistic value of these urban works.

As said before, graffiti is seldom heralded for its purposes other than to simply deface and claim a piece of property. In this modern day and age, art is no longer confined to a canvas or paper. It is my intent with this series to capture the artistic value of these works in a way in which the general public might actually appreciate them.  By presenting these images in a composed manner, focusing both on the actual macro setting and the intimate space inhabited by the graffiti, it is my intention to define the artistic merit of the graffiti sect of contemporary art in our modern everyday world.

Artist Presentation #2: Juergen Teller

I choose Juergen Teller as the subject for my second artist presentation for a few reasons.  Firstly, I am quite the fan of his collection of avant-garde portraits most often seen in the context of high fashion magazines and editorials.  Combining a dead-pan approach with monochromatics and harsh color balance, Teller has easily become one of the industry's most tell-tale artists. His work for designers such as Marc Jacobs, his most famous ad campaign, has solidly set him apart from the rest of the photography world simply because his work is recognized almost  anonymously with the brands he represents.

Secondly, the manner in which Teller presents his portrait to really allow for the subject, either human or inanimate, to casually emote an aesthetic.   This really speaks volumes in regards to Teller's personal style of photography.  Characteristically shot in burnt, monochromatic palattes, and heavy in their compositional strength, Teller's images really seem to captivate his subjects in po "snapshot" essence.  The events taking place prior or immediately after the image has been captured read so clearly in each one of Teller's series, particularly those high fashion editorial pieces.