Category: Fine Art

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Fine Art Music

ALISON – Daughter of Alice

An Arthouse Video

The title of this video production is ALISON — Daughter of Alice. The visual aesthetic is ‘high key’: still photographs using black and white reversal film and music by a contemporary composer.

This high key type of photography is crucial to attain the light and bright tones with little or no shadow akin to Hollywood portrayals of heaven. High key photography can be achieved inside the camera at the time of exposing the frame by increasing the exposure value. If you are using film, then darkroom techniques can be used during developing the film and/or printing onto photographic paper. There are also computer software programs which allow you to lighten either the grey/shadowy areas of an image or the whole image. It was this type of post processing that I used with the black and white reversal film from my SLR camera.

Composing the photographs

From black and white to colour, metaphorically speaking.

The scene is Anerley and Penge, South East London, 2019. The time was a bright summertime before the shops opened. The theme: reflections. Beckenham and Croydon were surveyed but couldn’t match the architecture, infrastructure details, street design, economic demographics and lighting. People were avoided at all costs. The law states that you have to gain consent from people before taking their photograph. Sometimes, my Photomedia degree comes in handy! The idea for the project popped into my mind one sunny day as I was just walking down the high street and happened to notice a reflection in a shop window. Before I know it, the moment had come and gone.

The Lewis Carroll Imperative!

“Curiouser and curiouser!” Alison once exclaimed in her Adventures in Wonderland. On reflection, could she have cried the same thing when Looking Through the Looking-glass? The photographs in this arthouse video are what one might see when looking into a shop window on a sunny day: the contents inside and a reflection of what is outside. Imagery Lewis Carroll would appreciate, even entertain and develop, if he was still around today? Please let me know your thoughts on this idea in the comments sections below. Thank you!

Imagine for a moment this very same Alice grew up, married her sweetheart and wanted a baby boy. But, however, she had a daughter instead. What name do you think she would christen the infant? Alison? And suppose this child grew up and happened to walk down a busy village lane just like Penge?

The Music

Im Paradisum by Karl Jenkins

My instrumentation of the music:

Acoustic piano

Electronic keyboard:

  • Piano
  • Organ
  • Recorder
  • Flute
  • French horn
  • Harp
  • Bell
  • Cimbles
  • Chior

The flute sound in this arthouse video I made into a ringtone for my mobile phone. The reason I chose the tune was because it was so light and bright and distinctive.

ALISON – Daughter of Alice
Categories
Fine Art

16th Annual Exhibition

Don’t miss it!

Categories
Fine Art

EXHIBITION

Announcing: The Anna Lovely Gallery

OPEN EXHIBITION 2022

All welcome!

100 Artists | 100 Artworks

For nine days starting today, Friday 2nd September, the show will run.

Last year, for the first time, I submitted an entry – and won best in category.

This year my entry is:

The Queen And Two Princesses

About the piece:

A composed photograph of Holy Trinity SE20, a church building in Penge, London was abstracted in Photoshop. An award-winning laboratory in Scotland made the image photometallic and added a 6mm acrylic facemount – an absolute essential – effectively doubling the visual quality.

This is luxury art.

https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/177212604/posts/1612

Categories
Fine Art

Art Exhibition – Revisited

The recent art exhibition at the Anna Lovely Gallery was open for two weeks, ending on the 3rd April 2022. The Artists showing were selected from the 2021 Summer Open Exhibition. On the penultimate day I made footage and added fitting music by Mussorgsky called ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Categories
Fine Art

Art Exhibition

There will be an art exhibition taking place in Sydenham, London starting this weekend. The private view will be the Friday evening before the show officially opens. All are welcome!

One of the pieces I will be exhibiting is titled: St. Conan’s Arrow. This piece of fine art started life as an image captured with my Nikon DSLR on a photography tour that included St. Conan’s Kirk, Lochawe, Scotland. Please click here for the church’s website. On their site you will discover fascinating information about this ‘Hidden Gem’. Put this destination on you itinerary the next time you visit the Argyll and treasure the experience!

When I visited, I witnessed how unique this location, architecture and spiritual atmosphere really was. And, as one does, I took many photographs; I was in my element. Capturing as much as I could, whilst obeying the holy reverence that, to me, was so very evident.

About the Art

One of the many architectural features of this ecclesiastical structure are the flying buttresses. The image below is a manipulation of just one composed photograph of an aspect of the church building. In this geometric abstraction created in Photoshop, you will be able to see the flying buttresses – but only if you squint! The green colours and shades are the surrounding deciduous foliage. The entire image has been enhanced, going through various stages of post-processing.

Title: St. Conan’s Arrow

Specifications and Adjectives

  • The next generation
  • Photoshop created
  • Award-winning laboratory
  • Crémé de la crémé
  • Church art
  • Apotheosis
  • ne plus ultra
  • Emotional
  • Culture
  • Metallic photographic paper
  • 6mm acrylic facemount
  • Size: A1 (other sizes available)
6mm acrylic facemount

Also on display will be three other A1 pieces from my Well-Tempered Church Catalogue, namely:

  1. Inexplicable Fancies
  2. Paul’s Journey To The Other Side
  3. Testament Of Expression

I have applied many hashtags to the pieces from the catalogue, but here are just three: Christian, Intelligent and Exquisite – in that order. When I look at my art I have an encounter: my vision senses quick rays of brightness that invades my being; I feel them somewhere internally – it’s a kind of love affair between my art and myself. The art, my art, changes me.

Anna Lovely Gallery

Last year, 2021, I displayed one piece in the Open Summer Exhibition which took place in September that year. There were over one hundred Artists displaying one piece of their art. After the exhibition I went to the gallery to collect my piece. To my joy and astonishment, the gallery owner informed me that my piece was chosen as best in category(!) Not only was I not fully aware that I was entering a competition, but a category had been created just for my piece of art! What a surprise and a delight! The category was: Digital Print. Questioning the boundaries of art…? Possibly. Inventing a genre of art beyond what has already been established…? Evidently so, but not intended from the outset. Raising the odd eyebrow or two…? Well, they certainly amaze me – and I’m the Artist!

Although my art has been placed in the Digital Print category, which applies to two dimensional media, these pieces have a second media: the facemount. The facemount is additional, and part of the art, effectively transforming the piece into three mentions. Therefore, I place the art into another category: Multimedia.

How about other people’s reactions to the pieces? When I showed someone an A4 size version, they took it into their hands and just looked… and for quite a while. What will your reaction be when you encounter these pieces in real life? Allow nothing to separate you from them except air for the full effect.

And so, here are the Selected Artists from the 2021 Open Exhibition showing in 2022 from this weekend for two weeks.

Further details can be found on the gallery’s blog: Anna Lovely Gallery

The price value of art.

Categories
Fine Art

Coat of Arms

Cleaned up scanned image
Commercial shield
Photo lab’s upload portal
Print: Fuji Fine Art Museum Rough 300GSM
Measurements
Template ready to cut out
Print cut to template
Sticking print to shield
After trimming print
Sword | Blazon | Crown
Categories
Fine Art

Saint Mark’s Church – Floating Quadrature (Inversion)

Dissertation submitted for the Degree of Photomedia BA (Hons)

Chapter 1 (extract)

The opening paragraph of Chapter 4 will give a taste of some of the meanings and aspects of Christian art and design.  The next paragraph will outline what type of analysis the chapter’s images will go under, which Christian ideas, history and principles occur regularly, where Peirce’s semiotics theory connects with the analysis, and how being equipped with the right knowledge can aid personal understanding and experience.

Following this, there will be some pages of essential groundwork necessary to be able to read the photographs, such as the meaning of numbers, shapes, colours, halos and auras.

The first photograph to be analysed is a stained-glass window, which is a panel (perpendicular) tracery design.  “Tracery is the term used to describe the varied forms of stone and glass decoration of the window head during the Middle-Ages…” (Dirszlay, 2001:231).  Following this, attention will be given to the three scenes depicted in the window with any related Bible references.

The next photograph that will be analysed is one representing the Erpingham Chasuble.  After its definition there will be a selection of details concerning what the design and the representation on the front communicates, and who it may have been made for.  The last photograph that will be analysed shows the top section of Bishop Fox’s crosier.  As before, there will be a definition followed by a selection of the details concerning what the design communicates.

Chapter 5/Conclusion will expand on the recipients of the messages expressed in Church art and design, how Church art and design can assist and enrich the Christian experience, and what the features of that experience are.  This chapter/conclusion will also look at why iconic art is symbolic and what it is based upon.

This will be followed by an examination of the invisible, yet visible essence of the Church.  Invisible because only the Omniscient God can see the true spiritual state of people; and visible because this spiritual state is proved, to a point, by the change in life style of people, and be photographed.  Also, the extent to which photographs of Church art and design communicates Christianity will be written about.  To finish, there will be a suggestion for possible future studies.

Saint Mark’s Church – Floating Quadrature (Inversion)

From:

TO WHAT EXTENT CAN PHOTOGRAPHS OF CHURCH ART AND DESIGN COMMUNICATE CHRISTIANITY?

Categories
Fine Art

Saint Mark’s Church – Floating Quadrature

Dissertation submitted for the Degree of Photomedia BA (Hons)

Chapter 1 (extract)

Although Christianity is a worldwide religion, this dissertation uses photographs of Church art and design based in the UK.  When deciding which images to include, history will be no barrier, and where the message is most clear, illustrative, interesting, and that the pieces of work are photographed to a high standard, it is more likely to appear within these pages.  These images are record photographs and are ‘representations of a representation’.  That is, they portray, depict, symbolise or present the likeness of the subject matter using photography, and are therefore secondary sourced material (as apposed to primary sourced material); the subject matter itself also portrays, depicts or symbolises something, in this case, aspects of Christianity.

‘Aspects’ of Christianity in this case means not the whole of Christianity.  The whole of Christianity involves believing unseen persons: God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.  Aspects of the church are also unseen.  The Church here means a community of believers, and God is the only one that knows who the true believers are.  In this respect the project is limited.

Having said this, the project will attempt to investigate what can be registered on film, and submits an analysis of what is being communicated.  The contents of the message can bring about a particular understanding or revelation that results in change, which can be seen as evidence.  (This will be looked at later on in the dissertation).

Chapter 2 looks at the meanings of the key terms that appear in the central question.  It opens with ‘Christianity’ but within the first sentence a connection is made to ‘religion’.  Religion is then discussed before moving onto the next key term – ‘Church’.

The term ‘Church’ with an upper case ‘C’ means something different from the word ‘church’ with a lower case ‘c’.  This is unpacked starting with its Greek origins and continues with biblical references.  What emerges from this chapter is that the Church is the local or worldwide collective of Saints.  (A Saint is a person recognised for the holiness of their life (holy means dedicated to God and applies to all true Christians)).

The Church is also, amongst other things invisible, yet visible.

The origin of the church will also be traced and means the building where the Church meets.  Chapter 2 also looks into orientation of traditional churches (e.g. facing east for worship), the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, and a synopsis of Christianity, Christianity being the last key term in the central question.

In Chapter 3 the communication theory of semiotics will be looked at.  (Semiotics being the study of signs and the way they work).  The examples used to illustrate the theory are taken from the terms in the central question e.g. photographs, church art and design, communication and Christianity.  The three main areas of study within semiotics are: the sign itself, the codes or systems into which signs are organised, and the culture within which these codes and signs operate; each of these will be explained more fully before moving on to the status of the reader and what the reader brings to any reading of texts.

The founders of semiotics – Peirce and Saussure – will also be looked at, but the focus will be on the former.  Peirce has divided his theory into two models and both will be explained.  The first is called ‘elements of meaning’, while the second is called ‘categories of sign-types’.  In the second model the categories are not separate or distinct.

Saint Mark’s Church – Floating Quadrature

From:

TO WHAT EXTENT CAN PHOTOGRAPHS OF CHURCH ART AND DESIGN COMMUNICATE CHRISTIANITY?

Categories
Fine Art

Christ Central Church – Abstraction

Dissertation submitted for the Degree of Photomedia BA (Hons)

Chapter 1 (extract)

Christianity started in the Roman province of Palestine (present-day Israel, Palestine and Jordan) and is based on the life, teachings, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Although Jesus only taught for three years and died an apparently humiliating and painful death on a cross outside Jerusalem, his birth is now celebrated around the world and is the point from which time is measured.

Keene writes that:

“Christianity grew initially as a radical movement within the much older tradition of Judaism.  Jesus was a Jew and remained faithful throughout his life to the Jewish faith, but, after his death, the new religion spread more widely among the Gentiles than the Jews.  Christianity soon developed a life of its own, apart from its mother faith, although the link between the two remained complex and problematic for a long time.

“As Christianity spread beyond the Roman Empire, the life and teachings of Jesus remained at the heart of the faith.”

(Keene, 2002:6)

Christians believe that Jesus is God, or the ‘Son of God’, who became incarnate to restore the relationship between God and mankind that had been broken by human sin.  They believe that when Jesus was crucified and rose again, he broke the hold of sin and death, and that today he reigns as Lord of all creation.  Christians can: have a personal relationship with God through Christ, live in the power of the Holy Spirit, be grafted into a community of believers, and respond to the radical teachings of Jesus.

On Church membership Keene observes:

“Today Christianity is the world’s largest religion… with some 1,500 million followers throughout the world.”

(Keene, 2002:7)
Christ Central Church – Abstraction

From:

TO WHAT EXTENT CAN PHOTOGRAPHS OF CHURCH ART AND DESIGN COMMUNICATE CHRISTIANITY?

Categories
Fine Art

Saint Mark’s Church Bell Tower – Abstraction

Dissertation submitted for the Degree of Photomedia BA (Hons)

Chapter 1 (extract)

Human communication is something that everyone recognises:

“[it] is talking to one another, it is television, it is spreading information, it is our hair style, it is literary criticism: the list is endless.”

(Fiske, 2001:1)

All communication involves signs and codes (more on this later).  In this dissertation communication is seen as the production and exchange of meanings.  Messages, or texts, interact with people in order to produce meanings, i.e.:

“it is concerned with the role of texts in our culture.”

(Fiske, 2001:2)

Therefore, the message or text is an element in a structural relationship whose other elements include external reality and the producer/reader.

“Producing and reading the text are seen as parallel, if not identical, processes in that they occupy the same place in this structured relationship.”

(Fiske, 2001:3)

In history, Church art and design was the pinnacle of human creativity and the inherent message of Christianity was communicated to people who were illiterate or poorly educated.  The arts, including photography, is not restricted by the barriers of communication, and can reach deep into people’s hearts and minds causing an experience of Christianity…

Saint Mark’s Church Bell Tower – Abstraction

From:

TO WHAT EXTENT CAN PHOTOGRAPHS OF CHURCH ART AND DESIGN COMMUNICATE CHRISTIANITY?