Teun Hocks

Teun Hocks is a Dutch photographer that was born in Leiden, Netherlands. The photographer studied at Academie St. Joost. He now lives and works in Breukelen. Hocks teaches at the Design Academy in Eindhoven. 

Hocks photographs himself as the main character in his surreal images. His characters are going through a midlife crisis. During their travels through the midlife crisis, they are put in humorous situations. The scenes are look like they are from a movie or a play. Which is fitting because Hocks is also a video artist.

Hocks artist process is far from normal. He describes it as, “…There’s a big backdrop that I paint or build, or whatever’s needed, and I stand in the middle of that. Then I take a picture of myself in black and white and enlarge it. I do it myself in the darkroom with a little bit of help. Then I tone the picture sepia. And later I add oil paint. I color everything, but it’s transparent, so that you can see the picture underneath.”

Cindy Sherman

Cindy Sherman was born in 1954 in Glen Ridge, New Jersey. She grew up with her four siblings on Long Island. She studied art State University College at Buffalo. After becoming bored with the limitations of painting, Sherman turned to photography. 

Sherman is considered one of the most important and influential contemporary artists.

For over thirty years she has been her own model. However, the photographs are not self portraits. She says that the characters are so unlike her that they are the opposite of her. She draws her inspiration from movies, TV, magazines, internet, art history. Sherman also makes films. She has become successful female photographer. An image from her 1981 series Centerfold sold for $3.9 million.

I prefer Sherman’s early work. I like the black and white photographs. I particularly like the series she did as a housewife. I used it as inspiration for a charcoal self portrait. Sherman says this about the her art process, “Suddenly the reflection I’m looking at is not at all me. Suddenly it’s like a phantom that’s just popped out of the mirror, and that’s when I know the character is right on. There have been moments where I remember this thing suddenly appearing and I can’t believe that’s me!”

Parke Harrison

Suspension

Turning to Spring

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison are a husband and wife art team. Robert was born in Fort Leonard Wood, MO in 1968. In 1964 Shana was born in Tulsa, OK. Robert earned his BFA from Kansas City Art Institute and MFA from University of New Mexico. While his wife earned her BFA from William Woods College.

The duo have been making photographic images together for 20 years. They work on the relationship between technology and the environment. Robert has said that, “ My photographs tell stories of loss, human struggle, and personal exploration within landscapes scarred by technology and over-use…. [I] strive to metaphorically and poetically link laborious actions, idiosyncratic rituals and strangely crude machines into tales about our modern experience.”

The surreal images they create make me think about my images and how I can make them better. I want to be able to use my imagination to the effect that they are able. To be able to make the images in my head a reality. 

Sally Mann

Sally Mann was born in Lexington, Virginia in 1951.  She took up photography at Putney School, from which graduated in 1969. Later she received her BA and MA from Hollins College in creative writing. She has one many awards including NEA, NEH, and Guggenheim Foundation grants.

Mann is best known for her controversial series Immediate Family. The series consists of 65 black and white photographs of her three children. They were all younger than ten. The images were of the children doing normal kid stuff. Some did touch on the subjects insecurity, loneliness, injury, sexuality and death. As such some of her children are photographed in the nude. This caused considerable backlash. People thought it was exploitive and child porn. Mann countered, “natural through the eyes of a mother, since she has seen her children in every state: happy, sad, playful, sick, bloodied, angry and even naked.”

Personally I like her Southern Landscape series the best. It was a change for the photographer. I am always drawn to landscapes, but have been into black and white landscapes recently. Hers are like no other photographers. They look like something happened to the camera or film, so that the viewer is only allowed to see part of the image. Therefore we are only getting part of the story. I am entranced by this partial landscape.

David Anderson: Rough Beauty

David Anderson was born in 1970 in Lansing, Michigan. At the age of nine he started photographing with his Kodak Instamatic camera. As an adult he worked as producer for MTV and as a member of Bill Clinton’s White House staff. 

Anderson took a class with Texas photographer Keith Carter. In that class the students put their secrets in a hat, then they chose another classmates secret at random. The secret Anderson got changed his life. His paper read, “I’m more scared than I look.”

One of his friends suggested that he drive to a near by town that was known to for its racist past. Vidor was known for having Klan activity. Anderson drove around and took pictures of whatever he found interesting. He claims he did not seek out anything racist. Many people of the people of Vidor felt they were portrayed negatively. Anderson always says in interviews that,“I developed such affection for the town.” He did publish a book a book of the photographs titled Rough Beauty.

The photographs are reminiscent of the Farm Security Administration. That is probably what makes me like them. I am fascinated by the work and style of the FSA. This series is stylistically similar to the FSA photos as well. The top photograph is my favorite. I like that I can not see the girl’s face. I want to know if the chicken is something she is raising for dinner. It is similar to how children sold eggs during the Great Depression to help feed their families. The bottom photograph makes me wonder why the men aren’t working. Is it their day off? Do they not have jobs? What is the one man drinking? Then again maybe I am the one reading too much into the image due to the past of the town. I could be the one stereotyping.

Clyde Butcher

Clyde Butcher is an American landscape Photographer. He was born in Kansas City, MO to a steelworker. Having scrap metal around him gave the artist the perfect environment to design and create little boats out of sheet metal. When Butcher was at California Polytechnic State University working on his degree in architecture he discovered photography to better present his models. 

Butcher was exposed to an Ansel Adams photography exhibition in 1963. This led Butcher to experiment with black and white landscape photography. In 1970 Butcher left his career in architecture to start showing his photography at art festivals. He then started a multimillion dollar company that sold photographs to department stores. When the stress became too much in 1977 he sold the company.

In 1983 the photographer’s son was killed by a drunk driver. He spent a lot of time in the in the wilderness of the Big Cypress National Preserve. It became a refuge and also a spiritual experience for him. While in the nature of the preserve Butcher decided to only work in black and white photography. He went out and purchased a 8x10 view finder camera.

I love the eery beauty of nature in his photographs. It is very dramatic. I also like that Butcher chose to use black and white. He knew that his landscapes did not need color to be effective. That color took away from structure of the trees and plants. This is a decision I too have struggled with. I get so much inspiration from Butcher’s work.

Tim Gaudreau

Tim Gaudreau earned an MFA from Maine College of Art and a BFA from the University of New Hampshire. He earned his MFA in both interdisciplinary studio art and critical theory. Currently Gaudreau lives and works in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

He is an eco-artist that is passionate about how the environment effects people and nature. It is his view that, "it is the responsibility of the artist to communicate a relevant vision about our world and society," He communicates that vision using a variety of media. Some of the media he works in are: photography, video, graphics and sculpture. 

Gaudreau undertook a project to photograph all his trash for a year. "Self Portrait as Revealed by Trash: 365 Days of Photographing Everything That I Throw Out" is a massive photograph work of over 5,000 images. The artist does take pictures of the things he recycles because it still takes energy to produce and recycle the product. The project forced the Gaudreea to change his personal habits. He said in an interview, “After photographing so many plastic bottles, there came a point when I couldn't bear to admit throwing out another one. I started by cutting back everywhere I could. I stopped using plastic and foil wrap in my kitchen; I started mixing my own iced tea from concentrate; Drinking water came from gallon jugs rather than pint bottles, then ultimately just tap water.”

This project inspired one of my pieces. I wanted to do something that showed that showed my eco-footprint. I don’t want my art to get too preachy without showing that I too am guilty.

Jann Arthus-Bertrand

Barge on the White Nile near Bor, Jonglei, South Sudan (6°11’ N, 31°33’ E)

Wind turbines of Banning Pass, near Palm Springs, California, United States (33°55’ N, 116°42’ W).

Yann Arthus-Bertrand was born in 1946. From a young age he had a passion for he environment and animals. When he was 20 he became the director of a nature reserve in central France. He also traveled to Kenya at the age of 30 to study lions for three years. That is where his art started. Yann used a camera as a tool to capture his observations of the lions. He also worked as a hot air balloon pilot while in Africa. It is where he learned to take pictures from the air. It also gave him the view point of the “overall picture” of the area and its resources. 

As a photographer Yann collaborated with Géo, National Geographic, Life, Paris Match, Figaro Magazine. He then started a project called “Earth From the Air.”  The book compiled from the images has sold over 3 million copies and the outdoor exhibition has seen by about 200 million people. Yann also did the documentary “Planet Ocean.” The film was about the importance of oceans in the ecosystems. Yann sees himself as an environmentalist before an artist.

Agnes Denes

Agnes Denes was born in Budapest, Hungry. Along with her parents she survived the Nazi occupation of Hungry. She was also raised in Sweden and the United States. Currently Denes is based out of New York City. Denes started her art career as a painter at New York School and Columbia University. The canvas became to constraining, so Denes moved on to other mediums.

Denes is a pioneer in land art. She is most famous for her work “Wheatfield, a Confrontation 1982.”  It was created during a six month period in Battery Park City Landfill, Manhattan. Denes planted and harvested wheat near Wall Street and the World Trade Center. The piece was about the “mismanagement, the use of the land, the misuse of the land, and world hunger.” 

Another land project Denes did was in Finland. It is protected by the Finish Government for 400 years. In 1996 Denes completed “Tree Mountain- A Living Time Capsule.”  It took place in an old gravel quarry. Volunteers from different countries planted 11,000 trees in a particular pattern. The volunteers were then given a certificate entitling them and the heirs to the care of the trees for 400 years. Art historian Robert Hobbs says that, “In the history of art there have been a few artists’ artists—individuals who have emphasized in their work the raising of provocative questions and who have also tested the limits of art by taking it into new, unforeseen areas and by using it for distinctly new functions. Agnes Denes is one of these special artists.”

Banksy

An English street artist, painter, political activist, and film activist goes by the pseudonymous Banksy. There is no conformation on who Banksy actually is. He became a freehand graffiti artist in 1990-1994. When he realized that is was easier to not get caught using stencils, he made the switch. It became a calling card for the artist. He tends to have anti-war, anti-capitalist, and anti-establishment themes. 

Banksy holds “exhibitions” on city streets on given weeks and then does street art cross that city. People track the street art while the exhibition is going on. Sometimes there is also a phone number viewers can call to get more information about the piece. Also the viewer can follower the exhibition on twitter. 

I like that Banksy believes that art should be for all people. He brings art to the everyday person. Some people do not appreciate the art and think it is vandalism. They paint over his artwork. Banksy also believes that art is also best done outside. I think that is interesting being that he is not painting the outdoors, he is just painting outdoors.