Creating the First Altar Piece: Test Shots 1

To create the first altar piece I have created test shots using my Olympus E3 in the photographic studio with the ISO 400/500, F5 and a slow expose of between 1/20 and 1/30 as I was using a tripod.  I also underexposed by 2 stops to ensure that the black background was pure black.  The focal length was 28mm.  Here are the first test shot contact sheets - I shot in Black and White in RAW and jpg.

As can be seen from these shots I tried various poses as Mary Magdalene and used the idea of the skull and the books to depict memento mori and meditation and reflection on the her transformation. 

Developing the Images: Focus On Mary Magdalene

After much consideration about which Bible Stories and people I wanted to use in my altar pieces I have chosen to start with Mary Magdalene.  I will focus on the stories she first appears in Luke 8:1 'The Twelve were with him and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out...' Mary appears in the Bible as shown here in quite a useful cheat sheet!

Mary Magdalene Cheat Sheet

This was from the blog 'Drawing on the Word' which also discusses the film about Mary Magdalene - the trailer can be seen here:

Mary Magdalene: The Untold Story

This story the director Garth Davis explains is about Mary Magdalene as she is one of the most “misunderstood spiritual figures in history.” (Drawing on the Word: 15th March 2018).

I would like to begin with the demons being drawn out and would like to study some artwork that refers to this incident however where it states demons;  'Scholars also suggest that the casting out of demons may have been illness or negative emotions.' (Biography online 2018) 

Here are a couple of examples: 

Penitent Mary Magdalene by Titian,(1565)

There are many images that use this pose looking up to heaven - a hand either on the heart or raised towards God.  The face is full of pure love and rapture. In some earlier versions f this image Mary bares her flesh however in this later image flesh is replaced with a skull as a memento mori, an open book and a vase. The memento mori is a reflection or meditation on the vanity of life on earth and mortality.  Mary stands out from what looks like a setting sun in the background, her white robes and flesh resplendent against the darker sky.  

The Penitent Magdalene by Caravaggio (1597)

'Caravaggio has managed to capture the image of a woman who has come to the end of the road, too tired to look into her future. This is the moment, he suggests, when she is ready to respond to Jesus' message of redemption. Mary Magdalene is sumptuously dressed, but the discarded jewellery and her slumped figure tell the viewer that she has reached a turning point in her life. Caravaggio portrays her as a rich courtesan, not a common prostitute. In fact, the real Mary Magdalene was neither. She was not the sinner described in Luke 7:36-50, and when Luke does describe an actual prostitute in 15:30, he uses a different word, not 'sinner'.' Bible Painting: Mary Magdalene (2012)

I will consider each of these images and which elements I would like to show in my own images and how I will portray this moment of change, not just change but utter transformation....

References

Sang R. (15/03/18) Drawing Out the Word. Was Mary Magdalene a Prostitute? [Online] Available from: https://drawingontheword.com/mary-magdalene-former-prostitute/ (Accessed 03/02/19)

Biography Online (2018) Mary Magdalene [Online] Available from: https://www.biographyonline.net/spiritual/mary-magdalene.html (Accessed 03/02/19)

Fletcher E (2012) Bible Paintings: Mary Magadele [Online] Available from: http://www.jesus-story.net/painting_magdalene.htm (Accessed 03/02/19)

Spiritualising the Photographic Image: Project Sign Off

I have created and completed the project sign off for my project ensuring that ideas are possible in the time given and that I am developing new skills in terms of the materiality of the image and creating images that I have not explored before through the altar pieces.

Please find my sign off here: Spiritualising the Photographic Image

Adam and Eve; detail from the Mystic Lamb in the Ghent Altarpiece, Hubert and Jan Van Eyck, 1432. St. Bavo, Ghent, Belgium

Here the beginning with Adam and Eve - Adam and Eve has an appeal as there is a simplicity and beauty to the images that could be photographed in a quite enigmatic way to really bring out the beginning of all stories...

Interlude: The Hand of Yves Klein

Today inspired by the hand of Yves Klein I created a small artpiece using all the hands of the Digital Arts Class.

Source: yves-klein-by-lalique

Yves Klein in his blue period created his own colour blue 'International Klein Blue 79'; ' IKB 79 was one of nearly two hundred blue monochrome paintings Yves Klein made during his short life. He began making monochromes in 1947, considering them to be a way of rejecting the idea of representation in painting and therefore of attaining creative freedom. ' (Tate 2019)

I though this image with his hand in colour with the black and white portrait really exemplified Klein and his work and the images I have created here I hope is a small homage to the artist!

References 

Tate Online (2019) Yves Klein, IKB79 (1959) [Online] Available from: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/klein-ikb-79-t01513 (Accessed 24/01/19) 

Lalique (2018) Lalique Yves Klein [Online Image] Available from: https://www.lalique.com/jp/art/20th-century-artists/yves-klein-by-lalique-la-victoire-de-samothrace (accessed 24/01/19) 

Initial Project Planning

Please find here my initial plan for my project:

Initial Project Plan: Photographic Altarpieces

70 Million by Hold Your Horses (Click link to watch video)

Please find here a video by Hold Your Horses which includes a wide variety of Tableau Vivants (Living Pictures) based on paintings and artpieces - here you will find The Last Supper, The Scream, Magritte, Picasso and many more - also it is funny and well done!

I intend to create a more detailed plan and will add my project sign off as well so that it is clear what the project will be, how I will execute this and my intended final outcomes.

Contemporary Altar Pieces: Spiritualising the Photographic Image

After much consideration I have decided this term to develop further the idea of creating altar pieces in photographic form. These will be contemporary stories, that perhaps have been stories that have been told, perhaps biblical but applied to the modern world. The photograph is not known for it's spiritual nature and coming Caravaggio's rejected altar pieces (which were too real), the photograph is often considered in a similar way as originally mechanical reproduction it has struggled to be considered seriously as art. It also has not reached the heights of painting in terms of creating pieces which are exalting God or a spiritual higher power.


It has often been used as the opposite of this as stated above, as an example if we consider Andres Serrano's 'Piss Christ'. This controversial image was much maligned when it went on display and even today causes controversy among Christian groups. In Avignon, France in 2011 protesters demanded it was removed, however the protest; 'reached an unprecedented peak on Palm Sunday when it was attacked with hammers and destroyed after an "anti-blasphemy" campaign by French Catholic fundamentalists in the southern city of Avignon. The violent slashing of the picture, and another Serrano photograph of a meditating nun, has plunged secular France into soul-searching about Christian fundamentalism' (Chrisafis A. The Guardian 18/04/11)

Andres Serrano (1987) Piss Christ

When the photograph original was displayed in the United States: 'In 1989, right wing Christian senators' criticism of Piss Christ led to a heated US debate on public arts funding. Republican Jesse Helms told the senate Serrano was "not an artist. He's a jerk."

Serrano defended his photograph as a criticism of the "billion-dollar Christ-for-profit industry" and a "condemnation of those who abuse the teachings of Christ for their own ignoble ends". It was vandalised in Australia, and neo-Nazis ransacked a Serrano show in Sweden in 2007.' (Chrisafis A. The Guardian 18/04/11)

Another use of piety and goodness through photography was Barbara Kruger's image from 1980 'Perfect'. This image was used in the cause of Feminism - Solomon-Godeau writes; 'In this headless presence the incarnation of 1950s good girl-ness or a vignetted image as prayer as a ladder to spiritual perfection..text here is revealed to be as ambiguous as the image' (Solomon Godeau 1991:94)

Barbara Kruger (1980) Untitled (Perfect)

In the case of both of these images photography is used to question how we look at God and how God is used in society. Therefore I would in my own images like to bring a real spiritual aspect to the photographic - a real exaltation rather than an attack or a controversy.

I would like to create contemporary altar pieces, I would like to use the photographic image and I will shoot in Black and white - I may experiment with colour if the scene or image demands this. I intend to find the spiritual within in these to somehow exalt the viewer into considering a higher power or authority that is not a cause, or advertising or celebrity or themselves which is what the exultations of photography seem only to be now. I want to create an image that can truly be meditated upon almost like a prayer....

References:

Chrisafis A.(18th April 2011) The Guardian, Attack on 'blasphemous' art work fires debate on role of religion in France [Online] Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/18/andres-serrano-piss-christ-destroyed-christian-protesters (Accessed 20/01/19)

Solomon-Godeau A. (1991) Photography at the Dock, University of Minnesota Press, Minnesota

Picture Credits

Serrano A. (1987) Piss Christ, Wikipedia [Online Image] Available From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piss_Christ (Accessed 20/01/19)

Kruger B (1980) Untitled (Perfect) The Art Institute Chicago [Online Image] Available from: https://www.artic.edu/artworks/159464/untitled-perfect (Accessed 20/01/19)

The Sagacious Snail: Process Excercise

This is the story of the sagacious snail - essentially this was a lego construction exercise which was used to exemplify how to record process.  The journey of the construction and creation of a piece of work.  In this case I wrestled with the lego instructions and small bits - however this is the results...