Showing posts with label self portraits. Show all posts
Showing posts with label self portraits. Show all posts
Self portrait on top of the scrap-heap
I love going to the tip. Not only the satisfaction of offloading a ute load of rubbish, usually gardening prunings, that earn me a couple of brownie points for a few days (believe me not that easy!), but I also get to admire and photograph the mangled piles of human detritus that would for the want of a few simple tools be turned into accommodation in the poorer cities of the world. There aren't too many favelas in Bermagui, so the piles build until crushed by machines or torched by delinquents.
The staff at the tip often get suspicious seeing someone taking photographs, thinking it must be going to end up a negative reflection of their work practices splashed across the front page of the Daily Telegraph so I am always excessively polite in asking their permission and explaining that I am artist who uses this imagery in my artwork. "What do you do?" asked the attendant at my last visit. She looked a little apprehensive when I explained I worked in photomedia and video art and am involved in online collaborative projects, but when I added that over the past two years that my subject matter had changed from erotica to an interest in decay, disorder and social disintegration I could visibly sense the relief in her eyes...
Self portrait as toxic waste
Bob Georgeson, Self portrait as toxic waste, 2015, Intervention at Bermagui Rubbish Tip (destroyed by crushing 23/03/2015)
More of Griet Menschaert
I had featured Griet's work a few posts back, but for those of you that didn't bookmark her site, she has just produced a brief portfolio stretching back over the last 3 years. A nice production using Scribd. If you click on the rectangle at the lower right hand corner you will get the full screen view.
Griet's work intrigues because of the contrast between her graphic works and her self portraits. While the former seem to have a life of their own and grow from the spaces they inhabit, the latter reflect a closed world of the privacy of the imagination. Perhaps the old dichotomy of the artist: introverted personalities that choose a public career in the most extroverted of worlds?
Griet Menschaert
Griet Menschaert, Landscape as Jewel, 2012, pencil on paper
Griet Menschaert is a Belgian born multi-disciplinary artist who lives and works in Eindhoven in the Netherlands. Eindhoven was rated in 2011 as the worlds most intelligent community, and if Griet's work is indicative of the population you can see why.
Griet Menschaert, Self Portrait, 2012
I came across her site while looking at other bloggers that list Hans Bellmer as an influence (seems that there are not that many of us!). I really like what she does, so thought I would share it with you...
Griet Menschaert, Drawing for 'Buiten de lijnen 02', 2012, graphite pencil and blue chalk on wall
I particularly like the quiet elegance and her capacity to work beyond the 'frame on wall of gallery' aesthetic, and her self portraits which are disarmingly painterly and self deprecating. Well worth a look, and personally very inspiring...
Check her out at: http://grietmenschaert.blogspot.com
The Other Side
Bob Georgeson, Self Portrait at 62, 2012, Photomontage
PS The glasses I found in the Uniting Church Op shop in Narooma...had to find some excuse to use them...