Straight from my sketchbook:
We were assigned to find two images with the same subject. One was to be a cliché image, the other avant-garde.
My first image, which fulfilled the cliché role, is a typical portrait of children. The sun is shinning, they are running, and they couldn't be happier, perfect (yet slightly creepy) siblings.
The second image is one that I recently discovered in the 51 Venice Biennale Exhibition Book from 2005. Yes, the average art student is more likely to discover new art in a 4 year old Biennale book than discover it in the current year's biennale.
Either way, I thought this image by Eija-Lisa Ahtila, from a film called The Present, 2001, was a much more interesting interpretation of a child's portrait
Something else I read into this image as an avant-garde statement was the fact that the little girl's bright blonde hair was growing out and being replaced with a darker, "diry-blonde" color. To me, this signified youth leaving. I thought the idea was echoed by having the girl lay her head in a mud puddle, reflecting her muddy, blonde hair.
I dont' know. just one way to read it... I wish I would have seen the film!
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Wow. Both images are disturbing to me, but oddly enough the first one seems to be more disturbing. Creepy little kids...
ReplyDeleteI feel that the second one is the child's exit from innocence. There is no more green grass, no more sunshine to light the way; this is a child's encounter with the difficult, beautiful world we live in. This is not to say that the sunshine and grass will never appear again - on the contrary, when faced with grass and sunshine, the child will have a yardstick by which to appreciate it.
That was my take. :)
great! and sometimes I do feel like i'm just laying in a puddle. Curious.
ReplyDeletedude, those kids are terrifying. : )