300 word critical appraisal

Critical Appraisal

My original idea when starting this 'waste' project was looking at a combination of decomposition and nuclear waste. I looked at various artists such as Bart & Hess and Ausra Osipaviciute. My intention was to eventually do a fashion shoot making my own prosthetics, then considered manipulating postcard images but after my tutorial decided that this topic could be seen as too offensive and was not an idea that I wished to develop further. 

                                                     Bart & Hess                                          Ausra Osipaviciute 

For my final idea my chosen concept was the waste of tax payers money during the expenses claim scandal in 2011. I chose 3 politicians, Jacqui Smith, Sir peter Viggers and Shahid Malik. Ida Taavitsainen and a few other artists and advertisements gave me the idea to explore using clothing to symbolise characters. I used suits to represent the politicians and tried to recreate their stories on a location shoot but was not happy to use these for my final images.

 I then decided to create collaged portraits of each politician. Linder Sterling inspired me to use objects and images related to the individuals story as replacements for body parts. I wanted to use the actual faces of the politicians but without using actual photographs of them. After looking at Peter walkers stencil work that he has combines with collages I used the same technique and created stencils of their faces and another set of stencils for the bodies.

 Ida Taavitsainen

Linder Sterling

Peter Walker

Above is my contact sheet. I wanted the photographs to look as similar to my original collages as possible so took them from straight on like they would be seen if they were simply collages hung on a wall. I placed one light above the collages pointing downwards to create deep shadows on the receipts. I did this to emphasise the texture. I decided to use images without the head in and attached the original collaged head to the prints. By doing this I am still keeping the 3D element of my collages but the main image is still a photographic print. 

I am pleased with my final idea as I feel it has a clear and interesting concept but have managed to translate it in an abstract form combining both photographic prints and collage. This was something that I really struggled with when it came to deciding on how to present my final images. I was so happy with my original collages I did not want to loose the textures and dimensions. This is why I photographed my collage in many different ways as I had not yet decided on the best way to compose it but managed to remedy this by combining the collaged heads with the prints of the background and stencilled bodies. 

I think that the best output for my prints is and exhibition. I am going to try and collaborate with others that have either looked at collage and working onto their prints or have based their project on political matters.