ADVANCED DIGITAL IMAGING
Spring 2017
Professor: Kathleen Ruiz
ARTIST'S STATEMENT
In each of the works I created over the course of this semester I really focused in on the idea of both layers and transparency and how the coupling of those two could create new effects in my work. In relation to this, having an architectural background also seamlessly made its way into my work and is clearly reflected in both the most minute and grand ways.
The first few project—the emotion sketches, gesture drawings, and large scale prints—set the initial pace for my work and displayed both the hard graphical nature of my later works (the stencil study and final project) as well as introduced my initial studies into layering that was again implemented in the final project. In looking at the works with the nude model I initially was interested in the hard lines his body created, whether they are orthogonal or diagonal. As I moved into the large scale prints, I still found those lines important but his movement became more apparent and seemed to be more appropriate to showcase in such a scale of work. The view is to feel his motion as if they were actually viewing him during our model visit and not just as a static, flat image on the wall, almost to the likening of Harold Edgerton (1903-1990).
In the last two projects I moved more towards a more architectural and graphical style, still keeping with the idea of layers. In the initial stencil study I rediscovered an image I had taken looking up an elliptical stair to the stained glass window above and felt the inherent beauty but also graphic quality that the repetition of a staircase creates and began to experiment with creating a 3-toned piece of art to highlight that patterning. While the black and white represented both the shadows and highlights of the image, I chose to use a metallic gold as the “grey” to both give the piece a greater presence on the wall but also to really highlight the grandiosity and ornateness of this stair. Moving forward to the final project, I wanted to create a similar feel of the grandiosity and patterning but through digital prints instead of a stencil piece. The three works again consist of beautifully patterned spaces—the stair, the column capitals of a historic gothic cathedral, and a chandelier amidst the opulent Versailles—that have all been dissected in the same manner as the stencil piece but presented in a more formal and clean way. The shadows and highlights were extracted and printed on one opaque glossy print, while the “grey” element was printed on transparency, again in a metallic gold hue, and layered on top of the black and white print. In the case of the prints, the gold takes on a more subdued role rather than in the stencil study, but creates a more shadow-like, depth effect that could never have been achieved through the stencil method. This enhances the ornate qualities of the subjects of the photos and really begins to add another dimension of graphic representation to the work as a whole.
In each of the works I created over the course of this semester I really focused in on the idea of both layers and transparency and how the coupling of those two could create new effects in my work. In relation to this, having an architectural background also seamlessly made its way into my work and is clearly reflected in both the most minute and grand ways.
The first few project—the emotion sketches, gesture drawings, and large scale prints—set the initial pace for my work and displayed both the hard graphical nature of my later works (the stencil study and final project) as well as introduced my initial studies into layering that was again implemented in the final project. In looking at the works with the nude model I initially was interested in the hard lines his body created, whether they are orthogonal or diagonal. As I moved into the large scale prints, I still found those lines important but his movement became more apparent and seemed to be more appropriate to showcase in such a scale of work. The view is to feel his motion as if they were actually viewing him during our model visit and not just as a static, flat image on the wall, almost to the likening of Harold Edgerton (1903-1990).
In the last two projects I moved more towards a more architectural and graphical style, still keeping with the idea of layers. In the initial stencil study I rediscovered an image I had taken looking up an elliptical stair to the stained glass window above and felt the inherent beauty but also graphic quality that the repetition of a staircase creates and began to experiment with creating a 3-toned piece of art to highlight that patterning. While the black and white represented both the shadows and highlights of the image, I chose to use a metallic gold as the “grey” to both give the piece a greater presence on the wall but also to really highlight the grandiosity and ornateness of this stair. Moving forward to the final project, I wanted to create a similar feel of the grandiosity and patterning but through digital prints instead of a stencil piece. The three works again consist of beautifully patterned spaces—the stair, the column capitals of a historic gothic cathedral, and a chandelier amidst the opulent Versailles—that have all been dissected in the same manner as the stencil piece but presented in a more formal and clean way. The shadows and highlights were extracted and printed on one opaque glossy print, while the “grey” element was printed on transparency, again in a metallic gold hue, and layered on top of the black and white print. In the case of the prints, the gold takes on a more subdued role rather than in the stencil study, but creates a more shadow-like, depth effect that could never have been achieved through the stencil method. This enhances the ornate qualities of the subjects of the photos and really begins to add another dimension of graphic representation to the work as a whole.