For my first brief, i was asked to create some images that demonstrated appropriation. This involved taking already existing images or things and changing them to give them a new meaning. Photographers and artists who create appropriation art, such as Richard Prince have been known to cause controversy as this practice is based around ‘stealing’ someone else’s work and giving it a new meaning or context by changing it slightly (or drastically).
For this brief i created 3 final images:
This first image that i created uses Van Gough’s ‘A Starry Night’ (which is one of my favourite pictures ever) but edited the image so that it showed Lincoln’s Cathedral rather than the original , silhouette of a church building. I was inspired to create this image by both the original painting and images that i had taken of the cathedral at night a few days previously, which reminded me of the building in the painting.
The images i took of the cathedral that were used in the final image:
The wanted the second image that i created to have a deeper meaning behind it therefore i chose to create an image which reflected the changing dominance and influence of social media and celebrity in society as oppose to the previous dominance of more traditional powers (eg: the monarchy). I chose to show this by altering a British stamp, usually seen with an image of Queen Elizabeth on it, to a profile image of Kim Kardashian. I also changed the currency on the stamp to the ‘like’ image from facebook as a symbol of social media that is recognised by many.
The final image:
My third image was inspired by one of Richard Avedon’s last portraits of Marilyn Monroe. In the photo, she looks sad which is a contrast to how she was usually presented to the public, i therefore decided to use this portrait and change it so that it had a fake smile over her natural, unhappy expression.
Final Image:
Leave a comment