graphite/20x30cm
original source(s): ‘The Sun’ 01/05/08 & the ‘Daily Star’ 14/05/08
As an attempt at something a little different, this transcription features a composition combining the images from two separate photographic originals.
Tidying up at work one day, I retrieved a discarded or forgotten copy of the tabloid newspaper ‘The Sun’. This publication in particular is renowned for its tradition of the ‘Page 3 girl’, in the best pin-up tradition, a topless pose of a young woman, of a so-called ‘glamorous’ nature, & I wondered if it might be possible to incorporate such an image into The Project, given its archetypal standing within the newspaper photo canon, & if such unambiguously titillating subject matter might be reclaimed in some way for art, if rendering such as a drawing, through the process of, might alter its reception & meaning in any way. Given that such examples from the history of art as many of the typical ‘Salon’ paintings of the 19th century as referenced & indeed transcribed recently could reasonably be claimed as & criticized for being made for similar purposes – although perhaps appealing to a more bourgeois audience than the British tabloid press’s target audience – I was concerned that such a drawing might merely fall into the same trap &, whilst a solution was intermittently contemplated, remained on hold as a ‘possibility’, but, then, subsequently retrieving a copy of another such newspaper, the ‘Daily Star’, containing a similar image, I was presented with an opportunity to attempt a different approach than what might otherwise be a more or less straight transcription. Another more recent example from the history of art more obviously displaying such 'glamorous' subject matter might be the work, in general, of the Pop artist Mel Ramos, which often references, in seemingly celebratory fashion, the world of advertising's use of naked young women's bodies to sell products of almost any nature, especially those that might appeal to men's sense of their own masculinity.
Hence the inspiration for this drawing – although itself being done on a considerably reduced scale & thus lacking much complexity - was an example of Gary Hume’s 'Water Paintings', which I saw as part of his exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1999, large-scale works of multiple, overlapping line drawings of nudes, based on magazine photos, punctuated by flat areas of colour (the lines in fact being the bare aluminium surface of the support), where the multiplicity of facial features, breasts, nipples, etc, renders their being read as belonging to any specific figure ambiguous.
Gary Hume ‘Water Painting’
household gloss on aluminium/1999
2 comments:
was it the same girl in both photos? When I first looked at it it looked like a blurry photo might, if someone moved during a long exposure. Then I started to look again and its oddly disconcerting, I found myself tracing lines with my finger to try and figure out which line belonged to which figure...its almost impossible to read them seprately...weird! Must have been hard to draw.
No, two different girls - in fact, one brunette, the other blonde.
Thanks for taking the time to have a good look at the drawing & attempt to figure out the separate details...I'm glad there's a degree of confusion & thus complexity, that was the aim, really, rather than an obvious transcription.
Actually, I don't think it was too difficult to draw - the first figure made it much easier than usual to locate the scale & proportions of the second one, even the more built up bits around the hands, etc, it acted as a sort of guide.
You might imagine how complex & 'unreadable' the Gary Hume 'Water Paintings' are, using many more figures overlaid as they do & consequently a greater number of parts & lines- they're very graceful images.
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