Archives for posts with tag: allegory
Remember the little boy entering the Woods of life without sign post in yesterday’s image? What will he look like in forty years time?
The path is meandering, but level; the trees are crooked!
I only hope he doesn’t lose the spring in his step!
A few years back I attended a training course for a volunteer organisation. One could describe the course as psychology for lay people. Most of it was common sense. But there was this one diagram describing the basic mental attitudes, which I found very good. I re-drew it this morning; something I wanted to do for some time. Yep, I know representatives of each and every one of those four catagories.
Personally, I am oscillating between the two left images (as I guess most women do!) When I am in the top left, everything is honky dory. I strongly believe in win-win situations and I work hard to achieve them. When I am in the bottom left, my soul mate comes in very handy :). Thank you!
Problems arise, when I come across someone who has the mental attitude of the top right quadrant. Often I simply walk away, but I can also turn into a lioness, particularly if a third party is involved. Lioness mode, believe me, is not a pretty picture and it is very exhausting, so I try to avoid it… Unfortunately I am not always successful.
I didn’t get around to writing yesterday. I am in a bit of a shambles at the moment.
In New Zealand there is this ad on TV against high speed driving, which has the punch line: “The faster you go, the bigger the mess”.
I am currently well past my comfortable speed and, yes I can confirm, the mess is getting bigger. There is only one way out… slowing down and working through the pile.
The connection to yesterday’s image are the wings, otherwise they have nothing in common. I could easily write a twenty page essay about the meaning of this photograph, which is called Fly shit on the world, but don’t worry, I won’t. It is obvious that there are many different layers to it.
It is another example of the images I thought would only appeal to me as the artist. I was surprised the other day when I had it up on my screen at work and a friend walked in and said to me: “Print this on A1 and I’ll hang it up.” Before I could be flattered he added “What is it?” I guess he must have been attracted to the colours in the first instance. I couldn’t enter into a discussion with him, he was gone as quickly as he had come and along the way lost his chance to get a print-out of this one. I am happy to give him another one of my images though, one that is more easily understood.
The connection to yesterday’s image is the cross. The X in the light painting could not deny it’s relationship with this symbol here. It is a beautiful light in this image and I love the stark white against the black cloudy sky. The meaning of the power lines severing the symbol from its base, I leave up to you.
Religion is a subject matter I usually avoid. All my life I knew there are two things I would never become: A revolutionary or a missionary. I lack the necessary conviction for either. This doesn’t mean that I don’t have a view point. In fact, I have very strong view points, but I also believe that opinions can differ and still remain friends.
I have a Bible though and I remember how I got it as there was a great lesson attached to it.
I was raised a protestant and when I was fourteen I went to prep classes for Confirmation. For the actual event, the congregation shouted each of us a “new entrants” Bible. The Bible came in two colours: red or blue. So the pastor asked the thirty of us which colour we would like, so he could order them. First red – heaps of hands went up. Then blue – only one hand was raised. Oops… everybody laughed and looked at me. It was a truly embarrassing moment, but I didn’t change my mind. I simply couldn’t imagine a red Bible.
When the Bibles finally arrived, the red was a totally obnoxious shade and I had around twenty-five offers to swap my blue one. I still have the blue one in my bookshelf.
This is one of my favourites. For me, there is so much symbolism in it and of course I know the person depicted. Therefore I don’t think this work can ever have the same meaning for anybody else. I believe the viewer will find their own meaning in it, hence I don’t like to explain…
However, with this image I will describe how I technically put things together.
The original title of the work is: “Kaiser, König, Bettelmann” (engl. “Emperor, King, Pauper”). Broadly speaking, my intention is to show that any person can be (or should be allowed to be) any of these characters at times. Hopefully they will be well balanced. For a wider audience I would call it “Modern Man”. Now I really mean MAN, not mankind.
In all three parts of the triptych I used the same four photographs to create the background. Those four images are symbolic on their own
1) a close-up of stone wall and wooden door with flaky paint
2) a window looking from the inside out
3) a frayed lace curtain
4) an iron observation tower in the woods of on an Eastern German island.
The four images were combined to support the person’s poses (strong, balanced and weak).
It all developed from the balanced person’s photograph, which was a simple holiday snapshot and the other two people shots were taken to match what I had started.
dedepuppets 