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Motivation


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ROOTS/INSPIRATION



Below is a selection of artists and photographers that I identify as informing and inspiring my practical work, some of whom I have known since childhood, others that I have stumbled across this year in relation to this work. The links are either to single examples of their work, or to sites that I have found on route.

In the notes section is my tumblr site, which gives a more extensive and chronological record of my Fossicking. Tumblr is a micro blogging content management system with incorporates a tagging and searching facility.

I have chosen these particular artists both for the connections to the work that I have been doing, for the way in which I have connected with them, and for possible connections between them.

This whole website and much of my project work can be seen as the collectings of a bricoleur; linking strongly with the nature of collage and montage.



Henry Talbot - photographic pioneer. His ‘photogenic drawings’ anticipate Man Ray’s Rayographs. I am keen on exploring the possibilities of using old scanners and printers for art projects; finding different ways of using the technology, exploring as Fox Talbot did.

Henry Peach Robinson/Oscar G. Rejlander - photographic pioneers developing multiple exposure techniques; the origins of photomontage. Interesting links with both examples to the Pre-Raphaelites, narrative painting, symbolism - a direct link with William Waterhouse. Both Peach Robinson and Waterhouse drew inspiration from Tennyson's ‘Lady of Shallot’.

Charles-Émile Reynaud - pioneer animator, showman, inventor of the Praxinoscope, and credited with the original projected animation. The idea of being a showman with the emerging technology resinates strongly with my own position as a digital/educational ‘crusader’.

Eadweard Muybridge - photographic pioneer, showman, most famous for multiple exposures exploring movement. His zoopraxiscope shows are said to be the original instance of cinematic projection. Much of the decoration of this site pays homage to Muybridge. There is such a magic in simple animation.

Émile Cohl - early animator, showman, creator of surreal photographs - member of Les Arts Incohérents, (anticipating Dada), and originator of pixillation. A surrealist before ‘surrealism’ and anti-art before Dada.
Pixillation (using humans as the models for animation) has been a major theme in the practical work that I have been doing in school.

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DADA/Surrealism - I have been for dada and against surrealism since schooldays - this study has taken me unexpectedly into surrealist territory.

Odilon Redon - symbolism, an inspiration to André Breton and hence Surrealism.

Max Ernst - Surrealism - representing the energy of invention and playful creation. I might include Nusch Eduard, who was there creating collages, playing Exquisite Corpse and being photographed; playing.

Renee Magritte - is a least favourite artist who must none the less be recognised in relation to the influence his work has had. Magritte’s play with the visual and cognitive has had great influence on commercial art and advertising. Commercial art turned back into high art though situation, as with pop art; the line between commercial art and ‘high’ art becoming increasingly blurred. Artists become products and adverts rise to the status of fine art. How apt that Saatchi is an advertising magnate. Advertising needs to reveal it’s message to a glance, often in the from of a collage of symbols.


Man Ray/Lee Miller - I came across the photographs of Lee Miller at the SFMoma in the summer of 2008, discovering that she is reputedly responsible for the discovery of Solarisation while working as assistant/muse/lover to Man Ray. Lee Miller led me to Roland Penrose, champion of surrealism in the UK, and creator of postcard montages. I discovered many personal connections which, while irrelevant, please me. Roland Penrose was a Quaker, as am I - I work in a Quaker school, where I taught a young relative of his some years ago. I have been in contact with Roland and Lee’s son, Anthony with the intention of pursuing research on montage and collage first hand - sadly not in time for this work. I have made use of his recordings for the recent Angels of Anarchy exhibition in Manchester.

Joseph Cornell - I pick out Cornell not for his collage work, nor his connection with Marcel Duchamp - but for his experimental surrealistic collage of film footage.

Hannah Höch - photomontage.

Raoul Hausmann - Hausmann claims to be the originator of photomontage.

Herbert Bayer - photomontage.

Kurt Scwitters - all these artists for their collage and photomontage. Hannah Höch and Raoul Hausmann in particular seem to be artists of the moment, featuring in a current art examination paper, and thus appearing in many of my students studies.

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Measure of a Man, 1951 Grosz, George (collage on paper)

Richard Hamilton - ‘Just what is it that makes today's homes so different? ‘ both the 1956 original collage and the 1993 laser jet print. I Visited an exhibition of Hamilton’s at the Serpentine gallery.

Robert Rauschenberg - in memory of Rauschenberg, this is his obituary from the New York Times.

Jiri Kolar - a Czech artist discovered this February while visiting the Egon Schiele gallery in Český Krumlov. I was amazed that much of his work is so similar to work that I have been doing with students in school.

Jan Švankmajer - surrealist stop frame animator. There seems to be a very strong surrealist seam running through Czech art.

Eduardo Paolozzi - I have known the work of Paolozzi for many years, but reconnected with it through a visit to the Pallant House gallery in Chichester, especially the huge collage/photomontage that they have there. Peter Blake’s work is also much in evidence.

Nigel Henderson - another British 20th century photomontage artist was new to me, discovered on this visit.

Diana Michener - partner of Jim Dine, photographer, and creator of photographic sequences which are similar to the ideas that I have had with both flip books and still photo narratives.

Helen Chadwick - experimented with xerox machines as they first appeared. I saw an exhibition of Chadwick’s that coincided with school getting it’s first photocopy machine in the early 1980‘s which I put to good artistic use.

Norman McLaren - experimental film maker, credited with ‘inventing’ pixelation.
PES - experimental contemporary digital stop frame animation and pixelation.

David Kemp - Cornish beach junk artist, who’s work chimes with the masks in the Pitt Rivers museum in Oxford, where we took our yr 7 this year.

Julian Opie - stop frame and flip book, and a recently updated website that goes over the top in terms of a ‘trompe-l'œil’ interface.

Adrian Brannan - contemporary photomontage artists discovered while beach combing the web - combing rather than surfing, as this metaphor fits better with the concept of the bricoleur.





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