DEGREE WORK
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Artist Statement
I am interested in the way gravity affects the forms which the body and fabric on a figure can create whilst mid fall, between joy and fear, is a fascinating formal construction. The drawings concentrate on the shape and positioning of the figures to free the mind of clichés of the physical world and challenge the imagination of the audience. The drawings do not strive to achieve photographic quality, instead the aim is to reassert the viewer to the handmade quality of the image, each image of the figure on first appearance looks the same, but on closer inspection there are subtle differences.
My inspiration comes from photographer Philippe Halsman’s work “Jumpology” his work started a fashion of jumping photographs that can be seen throughout history, through to photographers today such as Sam Taylor Wood and Denis Darzacq. The photography captures the body in tormenting positions that could be anywhere between life and death. This uncontrollable body movement is then juxtaposed by highly controlled influences such as Twyla Tharpe and Busby Berkeley; by locating the recalcitrant bodies into uniform positions we construct an embodiment of tangible moments while evidencing their entailed displacement.
I believe drawing is one of the most important tools, being one of the first means of communication, most things start with a draughtsman, be it architecture, mathematics, cartographers or planners, although in the art world it has maintained a relation with the provisional and unfinished, this has begun to change. I have utilized the innocence of drawing as a means to produce my work because of the qualities graphite allows that paint cannot achieve. The act of drawing intense pictures laboriously when a photograph can record them effortlessly allows an intense clarified view of the split second of jumping or falling. That second then becomes a series of moments created by the artist and emphasized through the act of drawing.
Series of dresses
© All images copyright of Alannah Barker
