Monday, December 8, 2014

Taylor Stevenson: Viviane Sassen

Viviane Sassen implicates Western beliefs and how they have imposed on the African culture. I feel as if her work defiantly relates and can help me understand my work better. I remember in a couple of my crits it was said that once I show a face in my pieces it tends to fall flat. In Sassens work she claimed that she normally abstracts the identity of her subject, when asked why she claimed that "the gaze of the viewer and about my own perspective” as opposed to “some truth about the photographed subject.”

I think that it is interesting that Sassen often abstracts her portraits since in art school we are told if you want to do a portrait you often need to include the face. However Sassen feels as if including  portraits that give identity  one will begin to "prove a single truth" about the subject. Since the work she is making isn't focused on one particular person or of an individual story this abstraction for the face generalizes the subject matter and allows the viewer to focus on the body and how it contours with the light and space around it. 

After reading and understanding the factors that Viviane uses in her work i understand what Shane meant in regards to the fear of black bodies. The interest in how black bodies interact with light fascinated me last year however it was just touching the surface and wasn't as complex. I hadn't understood the language that I had been implementing, I was just interested in seeing how  african american bodies would register in nude studies. 

 I need to dive into my topic and simply just start doing it. Taking elements such that have been successful I'm previous images and using them to help guide my future work. 




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