Jo’s work beautifully combines her illustration with her photographic portraiture to create these striking images, influenced by her interest in cultural identity. These images are a combination of her photographs and illustrations. She began making them as part of a portraiture project in her first year of her photography degree when she was exploring cultural identity and pattern. These are themes she has always been interested in and had re-occurred throughout her practice. Jo began by taking portraits of people of as many different nationalities as possible, so that as a collective they represent our multicultural society, something which she believe is worth celebrating. The ethnicities of the people in these pictures include; Italian, Indian-Columbian, British, Persian and Turkish. The hand-drawn patterns are loosely related to the culture of the sitter though the monochrome palette makes this less defined. The series has continued to grow as cultural identity which something highly relatable to my work and that I find fascinating.
I found her work interesting because of how the face has been created using lines, curves and patterns that represent that certain individual and has created their full identity. It also shows that something so simple can look so complicated and the way in which no colour has been enhanced in the following images expresses how much the patterns alone can illustrate a person’s identity. The way in which Jo has achieved this final outcome looks very interesting but complicated and not something easy to work with due to the fine detail included.
|
Each individual has there own style of pattern for example the Asian henna patterns represents the persons racial background and through their significant features. The concept of how the patterns have sculpted the face without any actual drawing of eyes, ears, lips, hair creating shadow adds a mysterious tone to the image as if were about to find out who these people are and Jo is trying to get the audience to thoughtfully think about who we may think these identities are according to their patterns.
|
The process of my work...
For my own responses using the inspiration of Jo Dressler, I thought very carefully abut the way i can approach this and fund that by printing out a plain black transparency and then using a sharp object, either a carving knife or compass to then press firmly against the transparency and draw what I want by scratching the black out. By ding that I then will end with a white mark that looks like its been drawn on but rather it has been scratched off. It took a while to find the most suitable object to scratch with because for example the pen was to thick and left untidy lines and i found it hard to draw with actually whereas the compass was very defined and sharp and i found it easier to control Another important thing whilst creating the experiment was to constantly wipe the transparency with its because the scratched parts start to go everywhere if not maintained properly and may cause a mess. For the response i used a self portrait of my model making eye contact with audience which shows she is confrontational about her identity The patterns i drew on are cultural and reveal a sense of the individual through looking at the picture. In order for my work to be successful in reaching my desired my outcome it was very important for me to use the portrait and follow the features such as the eyes, lips and nose as well as the head outline and hair so that the face will look like a realistic face.
Overall, I am pleased with the outcome as a final piece because I didn't expect it to be very successful since it all began as an experiment and how it was a first attempt. It highlights a persons culture within their identity and i find that very interesting Seeing as how making this response turned out successfully I would like to incorporate the same technique but try it in a different way. For example instead of using patterns, i would like to use text and not any sort of text. Words that may relate to the person or even in a adventure language for future experiments.
Using the technique that I discovered from Jo Dressler and the inspiration from Shirin Neshat that I said will incorporate further and experiment with but in a different way. I found that Shirin Neshat's work was the most appropriate because by using arabic text to scratch over a black transparency using a compass. I have used a face so that i am able to accurately write within the face and not over the features. The written text is from a piece of writing from the model that she personally wrote about herself and her identity and it consists of things that make her what she is today. She mentions personal things that mean a lot to her and things that she has been through. I think it was important for me to write something from the person themselves rather than any random text because it has a stronger meaning as it is something personal and sensitive to her so it makes sense.
|
People know their self more than anyone so I think the individual should write about who they are rather than anyone else. I have drawn other details on to the transparency such as the had eyes, nose, lips etc. to add life to the image and actually make it look like a human since it is already missing other important features such as colour. The black and white tone makes it seem as something very serious. I am quiet proud with the outcome and progression of the responses because it helped me intertwine more than one inspirational artists together. I have really liked the arabic text within my work and am looking forward to using it for future projects as i feel very confident when working with things that are related with the Arabian culture.