Review | using photoshop to d...

Generated on 2022-11-12 02:01:30

Result #1

using photoshop to digitally manipulate images of my sister I further experimented with photoshop digitally overlapping and using intense colour hues to interpret the idea of ‘motion’ and the memory I have of being with my sister. Photoshop allowed me to experiment with the more intense colour images that have been created using a range of brushes and textures. The best photographs from these process-based works have been black-and-white photographs of some small children who have a strange, mystical quality, suggesting that the images function almost as images of the trees they live in, representing them as a kind of crown, a symbol of the gift of nature. A number of these pictures have a hazy, moonlike quality, like the photographs of Icelandic islanders taken by NASA astronauts.On occasion I have used the photoshop to digitally edit a photograph of myself in a position of looking out at the world through a telescope. My inner voice becomes visible when I'm composing my images, a direct witness to the world of images and the motion they constitute. The same might be said for the images of my sister I. In one photograph I look down on the world as if it were a huge spinning turban. This spinning, looking-at-it-self aspect of the work is especially resonant for me. It turns the photograph into a metaphor for the self, a reflection on identity as a chain of arranged, spatial disjunctiones.With the photographs of my sister I have created images of my world, but they also represent, through a form of collage, a world we did not make. I have worked with a kind of classic illustration technique—the collage of photographs—to create works in which collage elements become direct images of photographs and vice versa. This is what Ive done in a series of photographs Ive taken in various cities around the world in order to document the cityscapes and scenes of people.In these photographs, I have juxtaposed images of cities with images of my own world, or with images of the world of photography.

Result #2

The colour was applied with a spray gun to create a silky matte surface with a fingerstick–like motion, which I then used to paint on images of my sister I had taken of her posing. In these new images, however, it is the diagrams of movement, the content of the photograph, that make a larger point of reference and outline a life spent on film. In these layers of images and pages of notes, my sister seems to be continually in a state of suspension between an actress in makeup, the camera, the stage, and the camera itself. This double image of self-photography and stage may be found in the canvas next to her as she waits for the camera. In several shots from this film, I see her face over and over again in the surface of her painting, unable to complete the transformation of her face, into the static image of the camera.

Result #3

using photoshop to digitally manipulate images of my sister I further experimented with photoshop digitally overlapping and using intense colour hues to interpret the idea of ‘motion’ and the memory I have of being with my sister. Photoshop allowed me to experiment with the more intense colour images that have been created using a range of brushes and textures. After a few weeks of experimenting with this technique, the brushy, natural-looking paint seemed to reveal itself as ink on paper. This was my first attempt at intentional drawing, and it was the first time I had attempted to transpose the process to a photographic medium. I chose this process because it was one that I could control and manipulate; it was also the most intuitive, seeing as how the very act of drawing is not fundamentally a process.For her second solo show at East Village boutique Karl Strauss, Lute Egan showed six medium-scale drawings made between 2005 and 2008. Each piece was made from ten to twenty single-panel rectangles made by applying wax to black oilstick (the artists hands-on method) to a variety of woods and paper, including two-by-fours, cardboard, paper, paperboard, and plastic. Egan began with a handful of seedless Moleskine—a format that she has used before, though the new ones were hung on the wall rather than placed directly on the gallery floor—and when she poured the wax into the wood, she created a rich, pigmented surface with a glossy, rusted sheen. After her mother began to collect them, Egan began to paint each one on a different piece of paper. Over time, the original drawings were absorbed by the wax and turned into a plasticky, impressionistic residue. The process may have begun as a simple, physical gesture, but by the time she was finished with the works, the exuberant richness of the wax suggested that Egans own hands and those of her mother had been able to unite for this project.Egans drawings for the wall were also comprised of one panel from each panel of a single-panel drawing.

Result #4

After experimenting with different methods, I realized that the emotional and psychological aspects of these images are inseparable from the physical side of the work. This result was a clear demonstration of the connection between the psychological dimension and the physical dimension, a link that was made clear by the juxtaposition of images, one made in the privacy of one's own home, the other in a public space.

Result #5

By experimenting with the structural possibilities of the computer-generated image, I also felt the need to take a stand against the repression of individuality, which can result from the suppression of knowledge of ones own culture. I am sorry that this show, which was inspired by my sister, was originally performed at a performance space. But it has been presented in the City of London and the work is now in a gallery in New York. The show was a success, and I hope that it can be used as a model for future events. Nevertheless, I hope that it can be continued in the future. If this does not happen, I will have nothing to write about.