Goal
Choose an artist and make a piece that references that artist in some way-content, materials, formal issues etc. This piece should get an introduction to how you think and work.
"Shattered"
Inspired by John Baldessari, a black and white photographer, I created "Shattered." Baldessari focuses in his pieces on certain parts of the body. Either by blocking them out or accentuating them, the obscure body parts stand out from the rest of the photo. When thinking of his work, I realized that many people have at least one body part that they absolutely hate. Whether it is wearing a baggy shirt to cover up a stomach or close-toed shoes to cover up bunions, everyone has one self conscience part on their body. I went around photographing these parts that people hate, everything from feet to eyebrows. I also used a shattered mirror as the background to represent the despair one feels when they look at this body part in the mirror. The different body parts I photographed formed a disfigured looking body, once the piece had been completed.
Close up view of the "face"
REVISION
I made another version of the same project, using my love for photography. This series is more literally inspired by Baldessari's work.
I like my revisions much more than my original project. I think that with my original project, I tried to interpret Baldessari's work too abstractly. I started over and took it much more literally this time. These photos are directly inspired by Baldessari's work.
Some of Baldessari's work:
