Artist Statement

 

There have been many times when I have been indecisive about what I call myself. Originally I told people that I was a photographer. It was a time when I hadn’t developed my style yet and the current state of the photographic world was unknown to me. After studying its history, photography to me was considered to be an ever-changing art form, never remaining consistent but still constrained by the societal demands of the time. 

            In my eyes photography is an art and nothing less. While I can understand that a great many photographers today are very commercialized to make a living and take many of their photos in the pursuit of business, which is not the case for me. I see this as the standard for photographers of this age, because of this I am not a photographer, I am an artist. The images I create are made to reflect my feelings and how I view the world. While a lot of it is very personal and hard to interpret sometimes they are all taken in the heat of the moment, none of it is planned. Most of the time, I make my images when I’m overwhelmed with the need to create. It is not something I can explain well in words, which is why my photos exist in the first place.

            My eventual goal as an artist is to move people to make more art, whether it be like mine or completely different. Art is a very important part of my life; it is my passion, my friend, my very being. Every day I see people with no passion or drive in their lives, they may be successful or they may be dirt poor, life to me seems meaningless without some form of drive or deep love for something. 

Comparing and Constrasting Artists Statements

The artists statements I chose three photographers that I am heavily influenced by and take inspiration from almost every day. Their names are Man Ray, Michael Kenna and Francesca Woodman, all of which are very expressive photographers just in different manners. Man Ray indulged in multimedia processes, Kenna created very surreal landscapes with his photos and Francesca took abstract long exposures of herself/others.

In all of their statements it reveals their characters and what it is like to be an artist in their eyes. Despite the fact that they are all photographers the photos they take are all very different from each other, which is also why their personalities are so different. Man Ray talks about how as an artist he expresses his emotions through different mediums like painting or sculpture while also clarifying there is no internal clash between the two. It is simply who he is and it in no way gets in the way of his art. Michael Kenna while not as expressive with his medium shares the same "idea" in that he doesn't let anything get in the way of what he loves but his approach on it is vastly different. Man Ray still relies on his emotions and natural instinct as an artist to help carry him through his work. Michael Kenna directly states that he refuses to let his emotions get in the way of taking photographs and that he simply does it for the love of photography, not to make incredible pieces. Our last statement to compare is Francesca, while being very short and concise, makes it very clear that her life and direction of her art is an immediate result of the things around her and how she is feeling. Her phrase "I was (am?) not unique but special. This is why I was an artist..."directly clarifies who is an artist because of her personality and how she views life. In person she was regarded as being extremely dramatic. Despite Man Ray using his emotions to create his work he did not let it control his very being like Francesca did.

            For me I see a lot of myself in all three of these artists statements. I see Man Rays conviction using multimedia art and not letting his love for each one get in the way of his art as a whole. I see Michael Kennas carefree approach on taking photos, while I am still keen on making my photo look as good as possible I wont let my negative feelings stop me from finishing my piece, instead I end up using it as motivation to make something great. Lastly and most prevalently I see Francesca, who makes everything in her eyes seem so dramatic and meaningful. By doing this it helps me see and feel certain things that end up inspiring my art. I am who I am and I cannot change it, so instead I show it to the world and make art. In all honestly I don't dislike anything about these statements, all three of these people are my favorite photographers, all very different but alike in their own way and that is something I have the decency to respect. 

Rhetoric

            Rhetoric is something that I’ve understood for a long time since I’ve obviously learned how to write in school for the past few years. My experience with rhetoric has been limited to a few things; writing for my teachers, talking on social media and writing small “articles” on games. While I’ve written other things these subjects are what I’ve had the most experience writing. As described in the texts rhetoric is about controlling how and what you write to be suitable to your audience. “Understanding Rhetoric” describes in a general context how communication is key in all aspects of writing and that it is all about the writer trying to connect with the reader, just done in a visual format. In “Murder!” it analyses rhetoric in a very finite way describing every little aspect as to why, how and where you are writing. Without understanding rhetoric its very hard to even begin writing since it is all about who you’re writing to. This even applies to writing to yourself in journals as the style of writing is geared specifically to be read by you and only you. Regardless if I read the articles or not I still understand rhetoric in its most basic form. A lot of the stuff I used to write were mainly explanations and formal pieces since I didn’t take much time to write in any other situation. Ive had experience writing informative theories/guides to certain people, mostly with video games since that’s something I have a lot of unnecessary knowledge in. Other than that I think rhetoric is pretty prevalent in my writing since I am always trying to explain something to people, this is most likely because I have a lot of trouble doing it in while speaking.

Navigating Genres

Genres are annoying

While I understand that the term “genre” has an extremely general meaning since it can fit into a variety of things I for some reason find it very annoying to group them as such. The author does happen to describe it very easily though, stating how different types of writing such as responses made via social media are included as their own types of genres. It’s interesting but nevertheless I still find it very annoying to think about as a whole but its still apart of our daily lives as we categorize movies, books, and even different styles of art into genres. I do appreciate it in the fact that I can properly organize and label things I like to do so that it is easier for people to understand and connect to. That’s where I feel like genres are important, especially with art because with certain people you have to let them know exactly what style of art they are looking at otherwise they wont understand it. I know this from experience, especially with photography as most people don’t consider or even relate it to being a form of art. By telling people beforehand that my photographs are to be considered abstract and surreal before they look at them they’ll be more likely to understand what the photo is and even why I took it. I only bring this up because this is something that has happened to me this past weekend as I had recently visited my family and shown them some of my work. Because most of them correlate photography as being commercial they were very confused and did not understand what they were looking at. Despite how annoying genres are to talk about they’re still very important and without them it would be very hard for some people to understand how to approach things.

Intro

          Hi my names Cisco, I'm in the pro photo program and am on my second semester. Before coming to Brooks I was supposed to attend Art Center to study character design and animation but changed my mind after being introduced to traditional film photography. I also have a small dog named Koshi that I’ve raised for the past three years. Some of my hobbies include drawing, painting, and collecting retro video games. One of the other things I like to do is play Super Smash Bros. on a competitive level. Before coming to Ventura I would go to tournaments on a regular basis to compete and sometimes win money.

           

            In terms of my photography I usually do a lot of double exposures and self-portraits. I prefer traditional methods over digital only for the fact that it feels like I put more effort into my work which is why I have started to paint and more on some of my digital prints. Two of my favorite photographers are Francesca Woodman and Man Ray who are well known for self-portraits/alternative post processing.

           

             Other things I enjoy are watching/reviewing movies. My favorite genre is horror because even if the movie is terrible it’s still slightly enjoyable. I find them fun to watch because I get scared very easily and actually enjoy the feeling of terror. Some of my favorite movies are Scott pilgrim Vs the World, Eternal Sunshines of the Spotless Mind, and Donnie Darko. I normally like anything that has an intricate story/creative world which is also why I normally play video games based off of their story. As silly as it seems there are actually a lot of movies/video games that inspire some of my art because of how beautiful the stories and characters are