CONTEXTUAL STUDIES: Assessment - Conceptualizing your own work.

I choose to work heavily in mediums that require the use of technology, especially when working with photography and graphics. I have found that the work of Alberto Serveso has become an increasingly heavy influence whilst I have developed my own style.

Through manipulating the skin or general objects with shapes I enjoy removing or warping their identities, a feature that is very prominent in his work. He manages to keep a very three dimensional feel to his work by replacing his models skin with illustration. These shapes are given different depths of field in order to acquire these dimensions and also give a new meaning to the figure. I feel it also allows the viewer to become more focused on the figure because each shape gives a new significance to his art. The way in which he places these shapes is very individual to each one, as each new shape creates a different aspect or feature to study keeping the viewer attached. By manipulating figures he also gives the viewer something in the image to relate to. Amongst the madness is a person, and the shapes could be depicted as a journey in which that figure has gone through. A visual representation attached to the person.

In my first project I tried to replicate this in my own short storey depicted through imagery. The storey showed two lovers being torn apart and through the use of shape I tried to give a sense of their emotions above what you can already see through the model. For example when they are together, the shapes attach to them but as they part, so do shapes. This allows a pragmatically sense of emotion for the viewer to become attached to. It tells its own storey.

As my work has progressed I have used different mediums to continue and develop this style, mainly in the form of quick experimental A3 pieces, in which I have mixed illustration with collage to create the same dynamic impact that Serveso creates in his work. I have tried expressing the identity of my images through an investigational mix of different colours and shapes. I started by trying to reshape the message of identity that Serveso tries to portray by replacing and distorting simple portraits with everyday typographic shapes that the viewer could connect with the images, I then experimented with removing the connection by replacing the face altogether with bold colour leaving an image with no identity at all.

This work further led me onto creating a short book of around 20 images in which I used black and white portraiture well known actors, and I replaced their faces with a circle, just enough to cover their identity but still leave the viewer with an unconscious understanding of who the person was. I feel that this aspect of my work has been hugely influence by the work of Alberto Serveso in the fact that he distorts the identity in his work but still leaves enough for the viewer to have both a concrete and unknowing relation with it.

I hope to continue with this, and carry on developing it into a large series of works.

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