Looking for inspirational ideas for drawings and my next illustrations, I came across John Willie’s magazine covers, where he worked for Bizarre in the late 1940’s/1950’s, basing his images on fetish and bondage. I think the way he allows the viewers to witness these extreme themes (especially for an iconic magazine cover), is really sophisticated and playful; opening up this idea of intense sex to a much wider audience.
S/S 07 Collection: Redeemed as one of the most conflictual and irrelevant symbolisations of the Holy Virgin Mary, these designs caused uproar for many, but for me – I see the clothing as innocent and delicate, with an outstanding urge for controversy, like many top designers in the industry.
Gregory Crewdson photograph’s large scale landscapes acting upon a dream-like effect. I think the photographer aims to show much more than beauty in his images, playing with the idea of irony and contradictory – but also, very much highlighting the beauty of this irony – specifically death or of such horrible, similar nature. Although i am not representing death or even beauty in my theme, his idea’s are similar with the contradictory. I can also take away the purity of the settings for potential shoots and the vintage look of the scenes and styling.
SCREENSHOTS FROM “DRAGULA / FINALE EP”
Wanting to look into the juxtaposition and contradictory of the theme of purity, i came across the TV Show ‘Dragula’, based on men in drag outfits which are typically based on a horrific theme. This one theme was ‘FILTH’ and encourage a drag in a nun’s outfit, carrying holy beads through the underwear and ripping pages out of the bible. I was really amused from this idea, completely contradicting the idea of a nun and the religion within. Adapting on my theme of purity, I will start to look into the contrdicatory elements – possibly bondage, or even based my illustrations on these nuns!
SOASIG CHAMAILLARD
Coming across Soasig’s work a while back now on pinterest when starting my development research for themes within feminism and I have just remembered how interesting and almost relevant these sculptures were to me. I have always been so fascinated by religion, and most importantly, Virgin Mary herself (even having a tattoo of her on my arm). This artist plays with old, broken statues in which she has found in garbage sales, car boot sales and even her own parents unwanted belongings. Soasig re-interprets the original design, to reflect much more of a contemporary look for the Virgin Mary, obviously causing much uproar throughout religions and their beliefs. What i mainly love about these pieces, is that she manages to relate something that a younger generation at this time may no little about, especially if they are not from a religious heritage and they show open and new ideas for what the real belief for a Virgin Mary could differ to be. I really feel like the concept of this artist’s designs can lead me far in developing a theme for my project; possibly basing it on;
These are a few examples of my first shoot – using location of the pier. This was the first, so didn’t show a theme of feminism or sexism within it obviously, but we simply aimed to firstly show the iconic style of the hip-hop industry. We wanted to use a non-evocative or sexual approach to the images to focus on this. We also knew that the future shoots we wanted to adapt to pink/ purple lighting, so used the bright pink lights of the theme park games to enhance this. I think this shoot went relatively well, but would rather keep my locational shoot focused on urban areas such as a basketball court or block of tower flats.
Location wise, we wanted to show pink but also involve this urban theme. A basketball court we came across was perfect and really reflected the hip hop feel, but unfortunately lighting was so poor here and shadows were overtaking any image so we had to move on. What else we thought was typically the pier. Although we thought this seemed generic and knew a lot of others would have the same idea, the playful, theme park idea really did work. Also, by including subtle hints of money (used for wealth) in some pictures, it symbolises success for the women in the industry – again seeking irony of stereotypes.
I thought this collection could be useful just for enhancing my aim of showing the irony of objectifying women through the use of evocative style. Versace aimed to show all curves of the body through this collection, focusing on the beauty of women. The clothing provides a fetishes dream of leather, plastic and tassels – what else could a man dream of on a body? But whats unique about this, is the woman to seems to act proud of.
Following on from my initial starting of Lil Kim’s research, Ive come across photographer, David Lachapelle, who i know to be most famous for his images of iconic women throughout recent centuries. Little did i realise before, that Lil Kim was a major influential model for his photography and he helped to concentrate viewers on the rise of feminism through her pictures. I loved his colour palette and how he light-heartedly plays with the theme of feminism/sexism through this. He makes the issues in which women from this industry face, such as body / clothing problems, seem sophisticated and high-end – instead of the stereotypical evolvement. Im definitely going to try and achieve his style in my work so i can relate the hiphop industry between the two.
