2013.17

Richard Mosse

Landscapes, like in your dream landscapes. CRAZY ASS LANDSCAPES. Waaah!

 I can't help but to drool over these images, they are just so luscious and, well lush! Infrared images give this image its striking pink colours which lets face it, even the XY's amongst us would love this to be real. Maybe it's the fantasy of these images which make them so exotic and beautiful, making something we know so well- something we might consider mundane - to become magical and fantastical. I stamp my approval all over it. 

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Image source - http://www.designboom.com/art/infrared-landscapes-by-richard-mosse-at-the-armory-show/

2013.10

Sarah Maple

This week I want to show you something from Sarah Maple. She's an amazing young artist working with painting and photography and even some guerilla style political stuffs. She's so cool.

For my dissertation, I was looking into controversy within art, and especially within the Middle East and Muslim women. Maple, being a Muslim herself, but living in Britain gives her the freedom to make interesting, uncensored work. And boy does she make the most of it. She's ruffled a few feathers in her time but it is all with good intention.

I for one think controversy is of major importance, especially in art. Life would be so boring if no one ever tested political, social boundaries. And Sarah is especially interesting to me, as she's a feminist, and a Muslim, two things we don't often associate together. She was even kind enough to do an online interview with me for my work, so extra cool points to her!

Self Portrait with my Mother's Headscarf and the breast...

This was one of the images I used to illustrate Maples work in my dissertation. It was hard to chose from the huge collection Maple has created for herself, but something drew me to this painting (ye ye not the boob!) but it's a really striking image to have the association of the Islamic headscarf and nudity in one image. Anyway, I highly recommend as always to check out her other work, she really does have a mixture of different media, styles etc so there plenty to look at!


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Image © Sarah Maple

2013.06

Hayley Nash

Losing the will to live with my dissertation. Thank Jehovah for pretty pictures to distract me and make us all feel better. My Ffoto of the Week comes from Hayley Nash, a fellow photographer and friend, and I ain't just being biased, but her stuff rocks. She manages to keep this cool flow of pastel colours running through her images weather it's fashion, or architecture or anything else that takes her fancy.

I absolutely love her latest work called Space, and below is my personal favourite from the series. I have a massive love for concrete jungles and cool urban images, and these tick all the boxes, with a contemporary twist by introducing forced symmetry. Can't wait to see what she comes out with next.

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Keep an eye out for here here:
Image copyright - http://www.hayleynashphotography.co.uk/
Blog - http://hayleyhead.blogspot.co.uk/

2013.04

Right, so with all my uni work and general life, Ffoto of the Week is becoming a bit sporadic. I'm sorry, alright! But that just means I will try even harder to get even better and more interesting images for you all.

Ahn Jun has an amazing series of self portraits to take your breath away. I'm not sure whether she has a thrill for heights, or what, but the views that she offers in most of her self portraits are remarkable. She's got guts, I'll give her that.

What strikes me with her images though, is that they are not your usual self portraits. They offer, like I said, an amazing view - she just happens to be standing right in there. This on paper doesn't sound amazing, but her presence in the images give a reality of being there in the moment. Giving the viewer a realisation of danger, or vertigo. She is putting herself in the situation. And in some of the images, offering a new perspective of the landscapes.

What can I say? I absolutely love her work. Wish I had the nerve to do something like this.

She has loads more on her website that you can check out. http://ahnjun.com/home.html

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Image Copyright Ahn Jun. http://ahnjun.com/home.html

2013.01

So, a new year begins again. A bit of a scary one for me, I graduate this year, that means finding ending my time at uni, finding some sort of means to be able to carry on living, and actually facing up to real life. Oh dear. 

So, for my first Ffoto Of the Week of the year, yikes, I'm showing Trevor Paglen's work. I've been looking at a lot of his stuff this year, this is one in which is inspiring me as I would love to take some more landscape images like this. It has a lovely quality to it, with the tones and linear elements making almost surreal. I don't usually play around with black and white that often, so my new years resolution is to do more black and white work. 

Happy New Year!

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Trevor Paglen Website: http://www.paglen.com/?l=news

2012.51

Ah Christmas. That time of year when you're either jumping for joy, or jumping off a bridge. 

MERRY CHRISTMAS/HAPPY HANUKKAH/SOLSTICE/DECEMBER/ETC

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Source Alt, Ctr, Del.

http://www.aledlewis.com/

2012.50

2012.49/50

Christophe Jacrot. 

Apologies for missing Ffoto of the week last week, so I'm hoping this is enough to cover week 49/50.
This image was taken during the Sandy hurricane. I remember seeing them for the first time, and they made an impact at the first glance, but now seem to have a whole new meaning to me.

I'm sure we've all heard the devastation that occurred on Friday in Newtown, Connecticut. I don't usually post such political views, even though I'm sure my words mean nothing to most - But it's my blog, and I'll cry if I want to... 

This series by Jacrot made such an impact visually, as what we normally associate NYC as the strongest city in the world, but hit hard by Sandy, it was left defenceless and weak. Something unnerving to most people. It's like seeing your lifelong Hero being knocked out by your childhood enemy. (Although I was hugely annoyed that the media put all the emphasis on NY, when actually so many other parts of America, and especially Cuba that were hugely effected. But who cares about little ol' Cuba ey? Bloody media). The bright lights of America, faded...

The recent news of the Sandy Hook School in Connecticut today made me cry. My Twitter, Facebook and even real life people have been constantly filling my timelines and ears about the devastation, and today seeing the sweet little faces of the children who had their lives taken away in a split second, broke my heart. 

This story has rilled up one of the age old questions of gun laws in America. And so it should. I can't help but see the correlation between gun crime in schools, and America. Actually, gun crime in general, and America. You only have to look at statistics to realise how backwards their system is. Last year handguns killed 8 in Britain, 52 in Canada and 10,728 in America. Doesn't take a genius, does it?

It seems to be clear that there is a desperate need to change these laws. I'm sorry but bollocks to your "constitutional right", what about the right for children to have the entitlement to their education without fear or worry about being gunned down at any given moment. When I was in school the biggest thing I had to worry about was my nasty French teacher if I hadn't done my homework, not being massacred.  

I'm doubtful that anything positive will come from this horrible disaster. Any change would be revolutionary to America, and of course, difficult. Especially with all those right-winged gun lovers, but most sensible people know change is the right thing. But whether or not America is sensible, and brave enough for change, is another question. Maybe one day mental health care will become freely available in America, and guns, less available, rather than the other way around. Sigh.

Jacrot captured NYC in darkness. But for now, I see the whole of America as living in the dark, and until gun laws are changed there, I can't see the light at the end of the American tunnel anymore.

My thoughts are with all those effected. 

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Image source http://christophejacrot.com/series/new-york-in-black/

Christophe Jacrot Website http://christophejacrot.com/
More reading - http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/12/newtown-and-the-madness-of-guns.html?mbid (via @aaronpaul_8 )

2012.48

I have a double whammy for you this week. I couldn't just pick one of Lissy Elle's images to show you (bit of confusion over her name - lots of people spelling it Lissie!). They seem so much more powerful together, so why deprive you of that. Her body of work is really quite lovely, her website and blog are something I could look through for hours. So this is just a very small insight into her work. If you like what you see, and have some time, I would seriously recommend looking through some of her other work. 

At the moment workload is becoming quite full on for me, and I'm generally feeling quite stressed. Yes, students do work hard, sometime. These images with their gorgeous pastel colours, simplistic content and gentle figures have this feeling of relaxation, letting your body take control; do what it wants. I can almost imaging what it feels to break these laws of physics, and just let my body float in mid air. The stress feels like it's melting away as I look at them. Bliss. 

A beautiful representation of the female body in a weightless and seemingly effortless letting go of control. 

I'm off to practice my floating techniques. I will break you, gravity.

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Lissy Elle - http://www.lissyelle.com/

Tumblr - http://lissyellephotoblog.tumblr.com/

Image Source - http://butdoesitfloat.com/You-see-things-You-keep-quiet-about-them-And-you-understand

2012.47

Nearly running out of the week to have time to do this. My feet hurt from dancing. (This is a good thing). And I have completely neglected my work. (Not so good). So to brighten up this Sunday evening, here's something a little different... A brilliant illustration by the very talented Zoë Austin which has been seen on Fashion156.com "We Love" list, so it must be good. 

And well, you know what, I love it too!

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Source: http://archive.fashion156.com/previous-blog/
Zoe's blog: http://zoeaustin.blogspot.co.uk/

2012.46

So, this week I was a little jealous of my friends down in Australia. They get so much of the good stuff, don't they (excluding Spiders, they can have the spiders). But what they did get this week was a gorgeous total solar eclipse that occurred on November 14th. 

I remember my first experience of a solar eclipse, I was at Centre Parks, eating a lolly wearing those super uncool 90s safety glasses. Looking back it was a great place to witness it. I was quite young at the time, so it was completely new and fascinating to me. I remember wanting to understand what was going on, it felt really special. Now, it's a reminder to me of how vast our solar system is, that the moon can magically make the sun vanish just by its positioning. A fantastic show of natural phenomena that we on Earth, as spectators have a front row seat for.

Here is an image from the recent eclipse in Queensland, Australia by Phil Hart, which captures the moment brilliantly, with that spillage of light from the Sun creating a mystical halo around the Moon. Both perfectly synchronised. Breathtaking. 

Just you wait Brits, we'll have the pleasure of a partial solar eclipse in 2015. Yay. 

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Image copyright Phil Hart 2012

2012.45

My first 'Ffoto Of the Week' is from a fantastic artist that I recently discovered, Claire Dorn. This French photographer has a lovely mix of traditional photographic elements riding alongside contemporary adjustments. This image from her "Colorfields" series struck me the most, which was hard with such a great portfolio. The contrast of smooth crashing waves lighting the scene against the harsh cold night gives a great dynamic to this image.

Hope you enjoy it as much as I do. 

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Image copyright @ Claire Dorn - http://www.clairedorn.com/inprogress.htm

Welcome - Ffoto Of the Week

Hello there.

How we all doing? Good? Good. 

I've had my blog up and running for 2 months now, blimey. Throughout this whole time, I keep finding amazing artwork, imagery, illustrations and all sorts of amazing visual stuff right at my fingertips (thanks to the crazy looney computer scientist guy for inventing the internet)! 

Some are relevant to my work or my projects and some aren't. So, as part of archiving this great work, and satisfying my need for wanting to share other peoples work - the art world really need to help out it's brothers and sisters, and little cousins - and to show you guys maybe something, or someone, you have never seen or heard before. 

You never know, you might discover something you love! 

Also, please feel free to send me links, or suggest some artists you think deserve a bit more love @ ffi.matthews@gmail.com and if they tickle my fancy they might just be my Ffoto of the Week!

Check out the first ever Ffoto of the week here '2012.45'

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