Square Eyes
Following on from yesterday's post, I just want to offer the image above of Jackie - the armless dress-shop mannequin who has has been part of our household for many years now, and who currently resides in a corner of the studio. This image was made on a hot evening earlier this summer. I would say that the natural thing would be to try and pin some sort of narrative on this image - its purpose is after all unclear, except from a purely graphic design perspective [which implies its own narrative]. As to the structure of the thing, as I've said before, I have long loved the square format and close-cropping - not just homing in on a subject but abstracting out of the world a flatter geometry that simultaneously, paradoxically implies physical or spiritual depth; graphic statement and expression in one. I guess that my painterly influences and antecedents - the Abstract Expressionists: particularly Robert Rauschenberg - surface to an extent. Chuck in some great photographers like