Zemni Photography Blog

Photography projects, inspiration and research by Linda Mayoux

Awoiska van der molen

Category: Art and Abstraction

  • Awoiska van der molen

    Awoiska van der Molen (born 1972) is a Dutch photographer, living in Amsterdam. Between 2000 and 2003, van der Molen made portraits of charismatic women she met on the streets of Manhattan, later switching to people judged by different criteria. After that she turned to photographing anonymous buildings at the edge of the city. Since 2009, she has concentrated on the natural world, travelling alone to remote places in order to make the work. She makes black and white prints in her own darkroom. 

    Photography exists by the virtue of light, but the landscapes in Awoiska van der Molens photographs loom out of the darkness. Her monochrome photographic works arise out of a desire to penetrate deeply into the core of the isolated world in which she photographs. Van der Molen is known for her monochrome landscapes. She stands out as someone who remains rooted in the riches of analogue photography and printing; expressing these roots in an extreme manner by creating monumental pieces that combine intentionality in choice of subject and photographic craftsmanship.

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    She has produced three books of black and white landscape photographs, made in remote places:

    Sequester (2014) “photographed throughout the whole of Europe” including the volcanic Canary Islands,contains monochromatic “landscapes, at times abstractly rendered to the point of dissolving into abstractions [. . . ] often obliterating all sense of the physical scale that was in front of the camera, many of them using very narrow ranges of tonality, from the blackest black to maybe a dark grey”.

    Photography exists by the virtue of light, but the landscapes in Awoiska van der Molen’s photographs loom out of the darkness. Her monochrome photographic works arise out of a desire to penetrate deeply into the core of the isolated world in which she photographs. Awoiska van der Molen is known for her monochrome landscapes. She stands out as someone who remains rooted in the riches of analogue photography and printing. She plays out these roots in an extreme manner by creating monumental pieces that combine intentionality in choice of subject and photographic craftsmanship.

    https://www.awoiska.nl/books#sequester

    Blanco 

    (2017) contains photographs of desolate landscapes and trees.

    “Spending long periods of time in solitude in remote landscapes, Awoiska van der Molen slowly uncovers the identity of the place, allowing it to impress upon her its specific emotional and physical qualities. Using her personal experience within the landscape for her creative process, she instinctively searches for a state of being in which the boundary between herself and her surroundings blur”.  

    Anna Dannemann, The Photographers’ Gallery | Deutsche Borse Photography Foundation Prize 2017.

    The Living Mountain 

    (2020) is “a book about land, solitude and the planet we inhabit.”

    ‘Regardless of how personal the starting point of my work may be, in the end I hope my images touch the strings of a universal knowledge, something lodged in our bodies, our guts, an intuition that reminds us of where we came from ages ago. A memory of our core existence, our bedrock, unyielding certainty in a very precarious world’. 

    https://www.awoiska.nl/books

  • Richard Long

    Long, in particular, has sought to distance his practice from the epic scale of works by Smithson and Michael Heizer. Long branded these kinds of works negatively as ‘capitalist art’, because of the way they absorbed the land and because of the financial resources necessary for their production (Andrews, 1999, p. 215).

    Long espoused a less interventionist approach to making land art, as well as simpler, less obtrusive sculptures that have a minimal impact upon the landscape. In addition to the sculptures they produced and documented with photography, Fulton and Long have focused on the meditative process of walking, and conceive of the act of walking as an art form in itself. The outcomes of this activity may be a combination of photographs and notes of objects and events observed, and perhaps also a sculptural aspect using materials from the walk. River Avon Mud Circle (2011) is one such example of this approach.

    A talk by Clarrie Wallis, curator of Richard Long’s show Heaven and Earth, Tate Britain 2009:
    http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/audio/richard-long-curators-talk
    Sean O’Hagan’s preview of Heaven and Earth:
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/may/10/art-richard-long

  • Illka Halso

    ‘I plan and visually construct buildings, which will protect nature from threats of pollution and what is more important, from actions of man. . . . When putting nature into a museum, you have to take under consideration the aspect of the audience/consumer. Nature becomes a joyride for tourists or a beautiful landscape turns into a meditative theatre show.’

    https://www.personsprojects.com/artists/ilkka-halso?x=bio

    Website

    http://ilkka.halso.net

    Ilkka Halso is a Finnish artist uses fabricated digital tableaux to  investigate the relationships between architecture, technology and nature, through photo-realistic renderings and collages set in natural environments. His artist’s statement begins tongue-in-cheek, with:
    “In order to protect and restore nature we need stronger means. Ilkka Halso has continued his conquest in order to save the world. He presents plans for a brighter and more durable millennium.”
    (www.ilkka.halso.net) In “Tree Works” and “Restoration” (2000-2005), light structures are built around existing trees with the aim of protecting them and, at the same time, of turning them into a sort of “living museum” of nature explorable by a public. Nature is somehow commodified and transformed into a spectacle to admire from very close. The architectural language is that of the scaffolding, transitional structures used to build a construction or to refurbish it: the act of connecting metal poles to natural environments engages a surreal discourse based on man’s paradoxical attempt to preserve what he’s currently destroying. In Ilkka Halso words:
    “I show ironic visions of mans relation to nature and his confidence in technology in solving problems caused by his own activities .I builded fictive restoration sites. Scaffoldings are covering objects of nature instead of houses and man-made objects. Trees, boulders, rock faces and fields are under repair.”
    In the Museum of Nature series, great biomes are in the process of being erected to protect areas of forest from pollution. Halso imagines a near future in which it is necessary to protect and preserve the natural environment with increasingly extreme interventions. He combines still photographs with 3D modelling software to realise his dystopian visions.
    I make plans and construct visually buildings, which protect nature from threats of pollution and what is more important from actions of man. I visualize shelters, massive buildings where big ecosystems could be stored as they are found today, in the present. These massive buildings protect forests, lakes and rivers from pollution and, more importantly, they protect nature from the actions of man himself. At the same time, I study different aspects of man’s relation to nature as though a rare, unique and endangered place.. While putting nature into a museum you have to take under consideration aspect of audience/ consumer. Nature becomes joyride for turists or beautyfull landscape turns into a meditative theatre show. Project is based on pessimistic vision of what is happening on earth. I am looking into future and I am not very happy about that. I am considering these pictures more as visual pamphlets than estetical images.
    In the recent ongoing series, Naturale, Halso has imagined a gigantic, Ark-like warehouse, containing secure samples of flora and crates of micro-ecosystems, ready for re-planting should the need arise.
    It’s typical for human beings to mould nature, justifying their actions with their aesthetic and economic aspirations. But nature can’t endure everything. In my photographs, control over nature has acquired a concrete form. The elements of nature have been rethought and have, for logistical purposes, been packed into modules that are easier to handle. The whole of nature is stored in a gigantic warehouse complex and the most common types of nature, from soil and flora to fauna can be easily assembled into working ecosystems. What’s happening? Has nature been evacuated to await better times, or has it been simplified into merchandise and absurd tableaux? I’m looking into the future. I don’t like what I see.

    Museum of Nature

    Works are visualized building plans, plans I do not want to see realized.

    http://ilkka.halso.net/pdf_download/Anatomy_of_Landscape_Dissection.pdf

    Combines photographs of nature with computer generated 3D-models.

    I visualize shelters, massive buildings where big ecosystems could be stored as they are found today, in the present. These massive buildings protect forests, lakes and rivers from pollution and, more importantly, they protect nature from the actions of man himself [sic]. At the same time, I study different aspects of man’s [sic] relation to nature as though a rare, unique and endangered place.

    While putting nature into a museum you have to take under consideration aspect of audience/ consumer. Nature becomes joyride for turists or beautyfull landscape turns into a meditative theatre show.

    Project is based on pessimistic vision of what is happening on earth. I am looking into future and I am not very happy about that. I am considering these pictures more as visual pamphlets than estetical images.

    Anatomy of Landscape

    With light as his tool, Ilkka Halso slices and cuts the landscape into biopsies, making cross-sections with a figurative scalpel. Even though the subject matter is the landscape, his images also speak of humans and their need to control and adjust the environment, including their perception and experience of it. Via an almost clinical approach the landscape becomes the material of the so called “scientific man’s” ways of perceiving and parsing nature.

    Panoramic collages and exploded views of photographs from different places in Finland.

    http://ilkka.halso.net/pdf_download/Anatomy_of_Landscape_Dissection.pdf

    Photographs are artificially lit from above in the darkness. Using a
    remote-controlled multicopter, flashlights are freely moved above the landscape, highlighting boundless details. From each location hundreds of frames of material are recorded, constituting massive amounts of data that can be manipulated in at least as many different ways.

    Other references

    https://www.personsprojects.com/artists/ilkka-halso?x=bio

  • Peter Kennard

    Peter Kennard (born 17 February 1949) is a London born and based photomontage artist and Senior Research Reader in Photography, Art and the Public Domain at the Royal College of Art. Seeking to reflect his involvement in the anti-Vietnam War movement, he turned from painting to photomontage to better address his political views.He has often worked in collaboration with writers, photographers, filmmakers and artists such as Peter Reading, John Pilger and Jenny Matthews.

    He is best known for the images he created for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) in the 1970s–80s. This includes “Haywain with Cruise Missiles“, a cut-and-paste photomontage of Constanble’s Haywain – a symbol of Britain’s rural idyll with American missiles used by CND to highlight the threat of installation of cruise missiles at air bases across the UK, such as Greenham Common.
    “ Photomontage may not be subtle but it is effective as a tactic when the aim is to make a point quickly and directly. We grasp immediately that Britain is under threat.” Liz Wells (2011, p.21 quoted Alexander 2013 p98)

    Because many of the left-wing organisations and publications he used to work with have disappeared, Kennard has turned to using exhibitions, books and the internet for his work.

    In “Dispatches from An Unofficial War Artist”, his 2000 autobiography, he writes about the possibilities of undertaking an aesthetic practice in relation to social change, and considers how his art has interacted with the politics of actual events.

     One of Kennard’s latest projects is 2011’s @earth, a story without words told in the language of photomontage. It takes the form of a small book priced at £9.99, published by the Tate Gallery, which Kennard believed was a reasonably cheap and accessible way of getting his message to young people outside the artworld. The book contains a variety of images from Kennard’s 40-year career and, as a result, attracts the criticism that its targets are too general. Kennard’s reply was that he wanted “to encourage people to think about their own situation and activate, but I’m not trying to tell them to do this or that. I’m just trying to show how I see the world at the moment.”

    The idea has expanded to a re-appropriation and re-distribution of his images through online platforms such as Tumblr, Facebook and Twitter. G8 Protest Posters is the latest of these projects that shares images “designed for protest”. Created in 2013 in reaction to the 39th G8 Summit in Enniskillen, Kennard has encouraged the public to “print, Tweet, Facebook, email and share these images as a sign of protest”. He sees online distribution sites as “a valuable addition to the dissident artists toolbox. G8 is a charade masquerading as a serious conference, my posters attempt to rip through the lies and point to the world as in fact it is.”

    He has also executed a number of guerrilla street installations and has said “if world leaders insist on assaulting our lives and livelihoods, let’s hit back by assaulting their eyes.”

    The first major retrospective of Kennard’s work will be held at the Imperial War Museum for one year from May 2015.

    Source: edited from Wikipedia

     

     

  • Sara Rawlinson

    Abstract Psychogeography

    ICM

  • Art Photography: My current position

    Take a look at these pieces of art work, some or all of which you might have seen before.
    Write down your thoughts about each one. Try to answer the following questions:
    • What do you think was the artist’s intent?
    • What does the image make you feel? Does it create any questions or conflicts in your mind?
    • Why do you think the artist has chosen to work in this way?
    • Is this art?
    You might want to do some background research, but make some preliminary notes based on the works themselves first before attempting to find out more about them.

    The pieces are:

    A My Bed, Tracey Emin
    www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/artpages/tracey_emin_my_bed.htm

    B Convergence, Jackson Pollock
    www.kaliweb.com/jacksonpollock/images/art/convergence.jpg

    C Hell, Jake and Dinos Chapman
    http://lpbrull.home.xs4all.nl/digipage/digipage/HELL/hell_overview.htm

    D Bram Stoker’s Chair, Sam Taylor-Wood
    www.chairblog.eu/2010/08/10/bram-stokers-chair-series-by-sam-taylor-wood/

    E Cremaster, Mathew Barney
    www.cremaster.net/#

    Write a short review (no more than 250 words) of each work and its relevance to your practice (if any) in your learning log or blog. Return to this exercise later in the course to see if your thoughts are the same of if your position and your practice have changed.

  • Exercise: Artistic Styles

    Write up to 150 words about an issue that you feel worthy of comment. It can be immigration, finance, social deprivation, domestic violence or any contemporary issue that you feel strongly about. Then make an image that expresses your concerns in one of the three artistic styles listed below. This is not an easy task and you may have to do some research before you start.

    Once you’ve completed your first image, have a go at a second image in another style. Try and make time to attempt the third style – or at least make some notes outlining how you’d go about it. You could then come back to this exercise later and put your ideas into practice.

    Constructivist: Produce a composite image from several images that you feel fully express your argument or position.

    Surrealist: From the same position statement, produce an image based upon surrealist notions of how the issue stands from your position. Why or how do you affect the issue? Is it ‘unconscious’ – just instinct that things should be different – or is it ‘repressive’ in order to provide what you see as a natural order of things? Produce an image that delivers your feelings from a surrealist viewpoint. (Re-read pp.281–82 in your reader if you need a reminder about what these terms mean.)

    Conceptual: The issue you’ve written about may be able to furnish you with a concept. Try making a précis of it in about 15 words. Once you’ve realised your concept, plan a way of expressing this in an image. Think in either a literal or non-literal manner – logically or illogically. Anything goes provided that your methodology visually supports the concept and the idea is illustrated through the imagery.

    Write the three tasks up in your blog alongside illustrations of constructivist, surrealist and conceptual photography you used as research for your image-making.

  • Exercise: Photography as Illustrative Art

    Choose a famous or favourite piece of narrative poetry. Use this to develop a set of illustrative images that express the sentiment and actions within the poem. You’ll find this exercise easier if you choose a poem that gives you plenty to work with, for example Tennyson’s ‘The Lady of Shalott’.
    Produce a set of three images that illustrate:
    • the start
    • the main story
    • the end.
    Type the poem out and use the images to illustrate it within your blog or learning log.
    Choose your font with care. It’s important to choose a font that is visually appropriate not just anonymous.

  • Rembrandt

    Rembrandt had a studio with fantastic quality daylight; the window light was soft and he used reflector sheets to bounce light back where he wanted it. In other words he used soft controlled light which is what the studio softboxes of today http://www.rembrandthuis.nl/cms_pages/index_main.html

    Rembrandt creative commons website

    Exercise: The Night Watch
    The painted portrait had to show the viewer what was important either to the sitter or the creator. This was done in some cases by pose, in some by costume or uniform or significant items with inherent meaning, or simply by position – being higher up than others or at the optimum positional point of the image. Look carefully at Rembrandt’s famous painting The Night Watch, commissioned by Frans Banning Cocq, the figure in the centre foreground.

    Before you follow the link below, make some notes in your learning log about how the artist uses the elements listed above (background, pose, clothes, props, light). What effect does
    he create? What does the portrait say about Banning Cocq?
    Look particularly at the use of light and dark in this huge portrait. How might you create similar effects photographically?
    Now follow the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9jj74aOr_Q

  • Aaron Siskind

    google images

    Aaron Siskind (1903 – 1991) was an American photographer. Siskind’s work focuses on the details of things, presented as flat surfaces to create a new image independent of the original subject. He was closely involved with, if not a part of, the abstract expressionist movement.

    https://www.britannica.com/video/164452/Aaron-Siskind-influences-documentary-photography