Final Project

For my final project I was planning to continue to experiment with collage and with layering painted elements over photographs. I was inspired by the paintings of the Abstract Expressionists, particularly Franz Kline's, Lehigh V Span, from 1960 with its broad and decisive brushstrokes and the layering of images and paint in the combines of Robert Rauschenberg. I took a series of shots of the exterior and interior of my favorite church in Austria, the neo-Gothic Votivkirche, with its stunning interiors, especially the transept, pulpit and stained glass windows. I scanned images of broad brushstrokes and washes that I did in watercolor for this purpose and layered and "painted" those onto the images in Photoshop. The resulting photographic "paintings" explore the close relationship between the two media and the question if and how the painted elements alter the meaning of the series.

I was drawn to transfer x-shaped forms onto the images which express my highly ambivalent feelings about the Catholic faith. I was brought up in Catholic Austria and while I was undoubtedly shaped by my childhood education (I was taught by nuns in grade school) I also started to question the teachings at a very early age. I am drawn to spiritual spaces such as this beautiful church but at the same time I am repulsed by the absolute power of the religious system behind it, especially in a historical context. The Votivkirche was built in 1879 as an offering to the church by Emperor Franz Joseph who had just escaped an assassination attempt by a Hungarian nationalist. So the church embodies both the then-absolute power of the Catholic church and that of the monarch.
I see the series as a journey from the train station (with the Votivkirche visible in the background) to the church and through its interiors ending in a final shot of the exterior. For me it was a journey through time and history and let me explore my ambivalent feelings towards my home country.

VT Memorial

Multi-Source Composite

A filmmaker friend of mine is doing a piece on the war memorial across from the Lafayette BART station and I went with her wanting to shoot some stills of the crosses on the hillside. While we were there - in the superbright midday sun - I came across a dead buck that some motorist must have run over just hours earlier. The sad reality of the slain animal contrasted weirdly with the gorgeousness of the bright sunshine. I had a hard time taking the shots of the bloodied animal. Death became very real that moment and also the deaths of the many soldiers that were memorialized just across the street. After shooting the images of the crosses with all the American flags blowing in the wind I started to think about doing a collage on the senselessness of war in general. There are so many casualties: killed, wounded and maimed soldiers on both sides, their families, the civilians.....so much pain and loss. I cannot imagine what it would be like to be in your early twenties and to return from Iraq with one or more of your bodyparts missing - your life that you have not yet lived at all completely and irrevocably altered. IMAGINE PEACE.......

Retouch

I am sure the Retouch assignment made many of us reach for old family pictures that have suffered through several moves, a lot of handling and have yellowed from the years. One of the few images that I had brought with me when I moved to the United States is a family portrait of my grandparents as a young couple that was taken around 1928 in Salzburg and despite my best efforts at preserving it the picture shows a lot of wear and tear. I was amazed at the tools that Photoshop provides to take off the scratches and smudges. Working on the image was particularly meaningful to me as I have never studied the faces in the image for such a length of time and in such detail. I have never met my grandfather - he passed away when my mother was ten years old and I only vaguely remember my grandmother - I was a small child when she died - only last week a family friend in Austria told me that I most resemble my great-grandmother who is also shown in the photograph. So working on the image was a little journey through time and family history - very welcome and meaningful to me.

Quality of Light

Last Saturday I visited the Cosumnes River Preserve with a filmmaker friend of mine to hopefully see some Sandhill Cranes and observe and shoot the beautiful light in the delta. The volunteer at the center told us that most of the birds had left for the season but we ventured out anyway onto one of the trails and the early afternoon light produced gorgeous patterns and reflections in the brush, water and fields. Sandra began shooting with her Bolex - and I trailed behind looking for intriguing images. The three shots posted on this blog are from our brief first foray - we later went down long country roads to two other viewing areas, Thornton Road and Staten Island, but the landscape and the light seemed less interesting. Late in the afternoon swarms of mosquitoes started to attack and we retreated to Lodi for a quick bite before the drive home. We arrived there at dusk and I was reminded of how beautiful the light is out West right before sunset. We had parked closed to the train station and a freight train was just coming through the station, all the station signal lights were ablaze and I was running to capture the moment with my camera. Ever since I started the assignment I have become obsessed with looking at light: morning, high noon, soft afternoon, dusk, the glowing neon signs at night - beauty constantly drawn anew.

Lipkin Roll

The assignment was to shoot without preediting which proved to be fun. When I was walking in my neighborhood and thinking about what to shoot I began to notice visual patterns. As humans we mark nature with signs and signifiers of our presence. Street and traffic signs, hydrants, the above-ground pipes and controls for water and steam lines, all stick out oddly in the natural environment. They are physical proof of our attempt to control our environment. I found these industrial shapes - particularly pipes, water meters etc. and how they merge with nature and at the same time are completely artificial particularly interesting. Investigating these forms also reminded me of the work of the German photographers Bernd and Hilla Becher who photographed the remnants of industrial buildings with a particular emphasis on the recurring shapes inherent to manufacturing and engineering.

Self-Portrait

This assignment is very timely as I have been thinking about who I am and what direction I want to go professionally a lot to the point of agonizing about it. I am applying to graduate schools with programs in art history and curatorial/museum studies at the moment and depending on the day and my mood my enthusiasm is great and also not so great. I have also been thinking about home a lot. When I visited Austria in 2005 I was so comfortable that I almost stayed. So who am I and what do I want to be and where do I want to be, those are the big looming questions.

Aside from my love for art I have always loved science and I recall being totally absorbed during one of the anatomy classes I took. I am fascinated with the intricate systems of the human body.

While shooting this assignment I noticed how much the day-to-day objects in one's life will take on meaning, from the shape of my dog's favorite ball - apart from the emotional connection it reminds me of Buckminster-Fullerene or a Geodesic dome - to simple kitchen utensils of daily use. All of it informs our visual world and becomes endlessly fascinating to me.