Sarah Jones’s life sized portrayals of young girls posed in interiors, are explored in the ‘Once Upon a Time’ chapter of The Photograph As Contemporary Art, by Charlotte Cotton.This section is based on storytelling or tableau, in art photography, in which the narrative is contained in one image. Its characteristics relate most directly to the pre-photographic era of 18th and 19th century Western figurative painting, creating narrative content through the composition of props, gestures and the style of the of the work. The images are staged, with all the elements pre-planned and precisely worked out.
Jones says that this body of work explores the disconnection between the authentic (the documentary photograph) and constructed (fictional and non-fictional) versions of the natural world.
“I use the device of the constructed environment, such as 'the garden' or the domestic interior, public and personal, as a space to reflect on social and cultural identities” and later on: “My practice involves a way of working that blurs boundaries: my portrait subjects simultaneously function both as their own representative and 'model' in my work”.
She is interested in the way that photographs can be both poetic and formal, in constructing versions of the ‘natural world’ and addressing the problems of narrative in contemporary image making, particularly in portraits. She is interested in what we know to be in an image, and what our own associations might bring. How perhaps an essentially photographic visual language may be further developed and emphasised across a body of work through a complex set of references.
No comments:
Post a Comment