I think I have aged thirty years (at least as far as my back is concerned) from crouching over my low rent sewing machine. I also feel surprisingly cold from the ever so slight change in weather recently.
Help the Aged
I think I have aged thirty years (at least as far as my back is concerned) from crouching over my low rent sewing machine. I also feel surprisingly cold from the ever so slight change in weather recently.
Home Truths
This is what I am working on at the moment. If you are familiar with my work, and my sense of humour, you might know that I like to reference what i remember from art history and mix in all my contempt for the world. Louise Bourgeois is my current muse, that and her confessional art and her "matter of fact" attitude.
Skin (Video Stills)
Unedited stills. I have a new found love for video stills over photography or the video. They seem more lively than a photograph but more perfect than the moving image.
Rear Window
This is actually the view from my font window, it is hazy because the window is incredibly dirty from the city filth.
Lost Boys
Jon, My Beautiful Boy 2010. Oil on canvas. 60cm X 50cm.
Community, responsibility, shared identity, shame.
Sexy, Boys
Recently, I stumbled upon Paradis, a french men's magazine. It is a little different than the average magazine that offers men the opportunity to look at naked women, reigniting the argument of naked versus the nude. Early issues bear the subtitle; A magazine for the contemporary man, above suggestive cover images. It features articles on the arts and although I have not yet seen an issue in the "flesh" yet, I think it is a magazine one could believably buy for the articles.
I think I had seen some stray photographs on the internet of Daisy Lowe that had appeared in the magazine before, she has lovely soft looking womanly breasts. However, it was the photographs of model/actress Lily Cole that really grabbed my attention. I was surprised to learn that such a credible model would pose for a lad's mag, however, the editorial has a entirely different feel than expected.
Shot by Juergen Teller, they appeared in the magazine in 2007. Old news now but I think they are spectacular. They have an incredible natural and real feeling. I love that the hazy light and harsh flash bouncing off lily's white skin is reminiscent of disposable cameras before a digital era, before girls learned young to pose by staring an LCD screen. They look as if a boyfriend took them, that they are personal and we should not be seeing them. Which makes it all the more sexy. As if I have found them, unexpectedly, while illicitly sneaking through someone's things. Of course they remind me of some of the original pin ups like Botticelli's Venus and even Millais' Ophelia, when the world loved the reds.
Images copyright of Juergen Teller/Paradis Magazine.
Sexy Vampires and Television Adverts
I am finding myself increasingly aware of advertisements on television. It is hard not too since they seem to be broadcasted louder than the programmes. In the past I did not pay too much (conscious) attention to them. Perhaps now that I increasingly spend less time with people I am becoming more aware of my own thoughts and less accustomed to popular culture. The latest ad to catch my eye is for a new car. The Volvo advertisement heavily features scenes from the newest installment of a certain vampire tween franchise. Now unless you are even more detached from society than I am, you will know that this is the book come film saga Twilight.
The ad is blatantly made for an American audience that is more familiar and less sensitive to cringy television. I am not entirely sure what the message is (I am not entirely sure there needs to be a message), it is all too American style cheese to sink in. I think it is a lifestyle advertisement, the kind where the adverts sums up who you are and tells you how to live yours life with purpose and for the moment. The feel of it really is not suitable for a European audience.
However the more pressing question is "who is this advert aimed at"? I have a few adult Twilight fan friends but it is my understanding that it is a tweenage to teenage sort of thing. How many teens here are in the market for a new car? I do not drive and do not know many who do drive, but media has taught me that Volvo is thought of as a reliable car. Just the kind a middle class (or what I would consider very wealthy) American parent would buy their sweet sixteen daughter. The main teen market interested in cars here is the seventeen-year-old boy racer. Since they like to drive by my apartment at night I know that they like to mess up ten-year-old cars with noisy sawn off exhaust pipes and 1000 euro body kits that cause the car to get stuck on speed bumps.
I can't quite find the exact advert played here but here is a link to a similar one.
For the record I do not dislike Twilight. I have never seen or read it. It seems "too much"
for me though. I like to get my sexy vampire kicks from the shocking (it shocked me), more adult and very clever True Blood.
The ad is blatantly made for an American audience that is more familiar and less sensitive to cringy television. I am not entirely sure what the message is (I am not entirely sure there needs to be a message), it is all too American style cheese to sink in. I think it is a lifestyle advertisement, the kind where the adverts sums up who you are and tells you how to live yours life with purpose and for the moment. The feel of it really is not suitable for a European audience.
However the more pressing question is "who is this advert aimed at"? I have a few adult Twilight fan friends but it is my understanding that it is a tweenage to teenage sort of thing. How many teens here are in the market for a new car? I do not drive and do not know many who do drive, but media has taught me that Volvo is thought of as a reliable car. Just the kind a middle class (or what I would consider very wealthy) American parent would buy their sweet sixteen daughter. The main teen market interested in cars here is the seventeen-year-old boy racer. Since they like to drive by my apartment at night I know that they like to mess up ten-year-old cars with noisy sawn off exhaust pipes and 1000 euro body kits that cause the car to get stuck on speed bumps.
I can't quite find the exact advert played here but here is a link to a similar one.
For the record I do not dislike Twilight. I have never seen or read it. It seems "too much"
for me though. I like to get my sexy vampire kicks from the shocking (it shocked me), more adult and very clever True Blood.
...don't they know it's the end of the world...
Video stills from video piece I Present to You. This was shot with a DSLR camera. Which is why there is a narrow dept of field in the first still. This effect was obtained from in camera settings with no colour, saturation or exposure adjustments in post production editing. HD video is relatively new from DSLR cameras and some low budget film makers are quite excited about it. Or so I hear.
I used a Nikon D90, which was the first DSLR with HD video capabilities, as Take That would say, things can only get better. Unless, of course, things get worse.
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