Hannah Starkey

Hannah Starkey was born in 1971 in Belfast, England.  Starkey’s photographs use actors placed in deliberate settings that “reconstruct scenes from everyday life with the concentrated stylisation of film” (the Saatchi Gallery).  Also contained in Starkey’s photographs are “women engaged in regular routines such as loitering in the street, sitting in cafes, or passively shopping.”  Her work manages to capture these mundane yet daily activities with an air of ‘relational detatchment.’ According to Saatchi Gallery, “Her still images operate as discomforting ‘pauses’; where the banality of existence is freeze-framed in crisis point, creating reflective instances of inner contemplation, isolation, and conflicting emotion.  Starkey enhances the feelings her images create through a careful and controlled of composition and setting.  Saatchi Gallery states that “Starkey often uses composition to heighten this sense of personal and emotional disconnection, with arrangements of lone figures seperated from a group, or segregated with metaphoric physical divides such as tables or mirrors.”  Starkey currently lives and works in London. 

Images:

http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/blogon/upload/2007/06/hannahstarkeyil.jpeg

http://www.portfoliocatalogue.com/40/01.jpg

http://www.tanyabonakdargallery.com/artist.php?art_name=Hannah%20Starkey

http://www.tanyabonakdargallery.com/artist.php?art_name=Hannah%20Starkey

Gallery representing artist/artist website:

http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/hannah_starkey.htm

Interview:

http://www.wallpaper.com/news/Interview:_Hannah_Starkey/1295

Vacancy and Landscape

Unihabited

In everyday language, land or a building described as "empty" or "vacant" means there are no structures or people visible, or the building is currently unoccupied, or that neither have apparent productive use.

-Carla I. Corbin, Landscape Journal

Corbin, C.  “Vacancy and the Landscape: Cultural Context and Design Response.”  Landscape Journal 22.1 (2003): 12-24. 12 Nov. 2008. 

http://lj.uwpress.org/cgi/content/abstract/22/1/12

Carla Corbin is an associate professor of landscape architecture at Ball State University, Indiana.  In her article she discusses what constitutes a ‘vacant’ landscape, and the implications it has culturally.  Corbin states: The declaration of vacancy or emptiness erases important dimensions of a site: natural processes and characteristics above or below the scale of conventional perception, cultural history or meanings that may not have physical presence, and systems that are not recognized as having immediate functional purpose.  Corbin examines vacancy and landscape in terms of culture, discussing how certain areas are perceived, valued, and described.  She also explains different theories behind vacant areas, and how designers and architects should approach these sites, pointing out specific problems that come with vacant landscapes. 

As I continue working with very controlled urban landscapes, the idea of vacancy and abandonment are very strong elements in my work.  Reading this article by Corbin was enlightening because I was able to read an expert’s view on theories regarding vacancy and landscape.  I thought it was rather interesting when Corbin described vacancy as “an open landscape that lacks scenic appeal or distinguishing features,” because even though my images are ‘vacant’ in a sense, I would like to think that they contain enough information and color to give them appeal.  Reading this article helped me to better define my concept.

Image:

http://www.corkingallery.com/files/Chad%20Gerth%20-%20Division%20&%20Latrobe%20lo.jpg

Laura Letinsky

Laura Letinsky was born  in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada in 1962.  She studied photography at University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, where she recieved her BFA in 1986.  She then went on to recieve her MFA from Yale in 1991.  Letinsky has had work exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography in Ottowa, to name a few.  Letinsky’s first series of published photographs were titled Venus Inferred, and consist of intimately engaged heterosexual couples, in Letinsky’s attempt to show the viewer what love looks like.  According to the Museum of Contemporary Photography, “Letinsky’s pictures of love are composed of Necco Wafer colors – peach, blue, green and yellow – and contained within an elegant formality. These visual attributes are fully unleashed in her most recent series, Morning and Melancholia, still-life compositions discovered in the remains of daily meals that reference Dutch and Flemish painting.”  The Museum of Contemporary Photography then goes on to say that both series of photographs “offer an extended essay on fragility, the domestic arena and, according to Letinsky, the photograph’s transformative qualities.”  Letinksy is currently teaching at the University of Chicago, where she serves as a Professor and Chair. 

Images:

http://www.mocp.org/collections/permanent/uploads/Letinsky1996_223.jpg

http://mouthtomouthmag.com/mermaid.jpg

http://www.flowerseast.com/Originals/MISC/39364.jpg

http://nymag.com/images/2/daily/entertainment/08/04/11_ac1_lg.jpg

Interview:

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://mouthtomouthmag.com/mermaid.jpg&imgrefurl=http://mouthtomouthmag.com/letinsky.html&h=470&w=600&sz=297&hl=en&start=12&um=1&usg=__HIHUm5ZYuRIBj2BFqkrfEhaJSQU=&tbnid=dbvl6Dv08cdbYM:&tbnh=106&tbnw=135&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dlaura%2Bletinsky%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den-us%26sa%3DN

Gallery Representing Artist/Artist Website:

http://www.josephbellows.com/artists/laura-letinsky/bio/