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“You’re a real sweet girl, but I feel like we are worlds apart.” This was in my head the summer before I began my St. Mary’s Project in studio art. Someone who I had been hanging out with for a little over a week messaged me this after I asked them why their attitude towards me had changed. I was not bothered by the fact that he did not want to spend time with me anymore, but I was bothered by his choice in words. I’m not a sweet girl and we’re not worlds apart. We go to the same college. These words may have caused me annoyance and confusion, but they also inspired me. I have always admired artwork that stemmed from a real moment and I knew that it was important for my work to be honest. Portraits were my main fascination. I loved how emotions could be conveyed through body language and it became clear that combining language with people could be the key to creating the kind of powerful art that I was seeking.

Biography can be the key to unraveling artistic meaning. A sense of an “artistic self,” not only applies to artists, but to art viewers as well because it helps to determine their interpretation of a work of art. It shapes opinions, behaviors, appearance, loyalties, desires, and ethics. Weintraub explains that establishing an artistic “self” is a pre-requisite for creation (Weintraub 194). Nan Goldin is an artist who focuses on her life, her friends, culture, and society’s standards in order to define herself as an artist. Who she is defines how she creates. Nan Goldin’s photographs display the raw emotion of scenes from her real life. I could connect with Goldin’s snapshot method of creation. She documents every moment, good or bad. Friendships are what expand Goldin’s notion of self and I really like the fact that when you look through her pictures you can get a sense of the people she was so close to. It is not just one image of her and her friends, there are multiple images. This gives the viewer more insight into their lives.

I admire her process of documentation and in some ways my studio work has been very similar. I am also inspired by the stories of my friends. I have chosen to photograph them using a digital camera, which is very conducive to snapshots, but unlike Goldin, I am more interested in those singular moments that have affected them. I do not document my daily life or the lives of those around me. Instead, I listen and I am fascinated when communication happens unexpectedly having an impact on the person who is the subject or receiver of such language.

Self-portrait making love w. Brian is intriguing because it is there and unashamed. Goldin has said, “I sometimes don’t know how I feel about someone until I take his or her picture” (Goldin 1). Her camera is attached to her and her friends cannot imagine her without it. In a sense, her camera and the act of taking pictures becomes part of her daily experiences. I think this technique is fascinating, but I do not work in the same way. Her pictures capture memories and my pictures recreate memories, making something ephemeral, like the spoken word, into something tangible, like a photograph hanging on the wall.

I have spent a lot of time thinking of the different ways an individual can be portrayed idealistically and naturally. The viewer does not know everything about the subject of one of my photographs. I leave them wanting more. The work I create tells a secret and entices the viewer to wonder about where these words came from. Feelings and emotions are the strongest catalysts for my creative process, whether it be joy or anger. My subjects are familiar to me, but I enjoy portraying them in a mysterious or ambiguous way by obstructing the view of them or lighting them in a different way. People, the way they look, and the way they act make me want to produce art. I would like for the audience to be seduced by the appearance and implications of my work, making it almost impossible for them to look away, but at the same time feel a little uncomfortable.

Nan Goldin’s work has that honesty and intimacy which is what I wanted, but I was not satisfied with just portraits of individuals, the words that people had said to them had to be incorporated as well. Those singular, unforgettable moments partly defined them. So I looked to another artist, Sophie Calle, who used photographs in a more conceptual nature. It can be argued that the experiences which inspire the creation of artwork often take precedence over the artist’s choice of medium. When an unexpected moment of inspiration occurs, it is important to get to the route of its power and ask how a lived encounter be transformed into or depicted as a work of art. There is something undeniably fascinating when life and art meet because it mixes the personal truth with fabrication.

Calle’s work is shamelessly and unreservedly directed at herself. She uses direct language and her own personal experiences as inspiration for and the content of her artwork. She is often experimenting with the social behavior of others. Calle has the ability to make the viewer experience what she has gone through in a very visceral, artistic way. I saw her installation, which centered on a break up letter she received ending with the phrase “Take care of yourself.” The exhibition consisted of photographs and writings all exploring the possible interpretations of this letter which profoundly affected her. I was very inspired by the way she made something like a breakup letter public, when it is usually so private and embarrassing.

In her series, True Stories, she takes personal moments and creates photographs depicting their existence. One piece from this series that particularly resonated with me was The Pig, where she recalls how a man called her explaining that they were making similar work and asked if they could meet. She agreed and he took her to a barbecue. Afterwards he dropped her off at her door and tried to kiss her. She refused and he said, “‘Well anyway, you eat like a pig.’” Calle took a split self-portrait to create an artistic version of this moment. At the top she is wearing a pig’s nose and at the bottom her hands are displayed holding a knife and fork. She says, “Even today, after all these years, his words haunt me. I can’t remember a thing about him, yet he’s still sitting at my table” (Calle 173). There is something so ridiculous, yet poignant about the effect these words had on her.

The work that I create also channels this sense of truth as well as an artistic interpretation of events. The words that are painted on the subject’s bodies are all taken from life, but the photographs that I create as the artist are fabrications. A real moment is the source of inspiration, but the viewer is actually seeing a social exchange between the artist and sitter. This emulates the initial exchange, ultimately creating a new story. Calle’s work is similar to this, often using photographs to get at the larger picture of the experience.

While I looked at all of these artist who were completely new to me, I thought a lot about the traditional artists that have captured my attention and I always come back to Rembrandt. His masterful understanding of human nature and unmatchable artistic technique has placed him among the world’s greatest artists. He was particularly skilled at depicting dialogues as well as singular moments. Hendrickje in bed is a perfect example of the way that Rembrandt used light, color, and composition in order to capture an intimate scene (Schwartz 63).

Rembrandt unabashedly painted women for what they were. Hendrickje was a woman that he loved and paintings of her, when compared to other portraits that were specifically commissioned, clearly display the accessibility of his personal feelings through the canvas. Rembrandt is depicting Hendrickje as a young woman who has recently entered his life; he depicts her with a sense of sensuality. The work concerning Hendrickje maintains that ambiguous relationship between art and life. It is difficult to tell whether Rembrandt wants to specifically say something about her as a person or if he is using her image in order to create a type. Hendrickje in bed could be viewed as a figure from a story or as an individual.
Some would feel that it would be to Rembrandt’s advantage to depersonalize his models so that they would be more accessible to viewers of then and today, but there is still an undeniable sense of his intimate relationship with Hendrickje, which cannot help but come through to the viewer (Schwartz 63). This is an important issue that comes up in my work and I try to maintain a balance in my photographs by creating a sense of the individual, but portraying them in poses that allow the viewer to relate to them in a cultural sense.

Hendrickje became a recognizable though ambiguous figure within Rembrandt’s art. She was often chastised by the church for living in sin with Rembrandt and it seems as if he chose to enter into a dialogue with the church about their love life. He “…painted his common law wife in the guise of sexually compromised women” (Schwartz 57). He was interested in combining the expected universal story with people that he knew intimately.

My work is very different from Rembrandt’s visually. His paintings specialize in elaborate scenes which often speak to the viewer by referencing known stories. Like Rembrandt, I give the viewer a sense of the individual and create a story. I admire the soft tones of his work and that is something that I have tried to achieve in my photographs. I use subjects that I am comfortable with and lighting to enhance their position and the feel of their surroundings. His treatment of the body is interesting and he often chooses poses which speak to the vulnerability and the natural setting of the subjects of his work, which I can identify with.

For my show in the gallery, it was very important that I display photographs and audio. These digital photographs allowed me to immediately capture an image, much like a quick spoken interaction. However, the photograph is then crafted and changed slightly, much like the memory of the interaction would be. Not only did I take pictures of my friends, but there is also a self-portrait included. I placed myself in the position of the subject, letting someone paint words on me and then take photographs. The audio piece that I have created plays in a darkened room, creating an intimate setting. The viewer can listen to the stories about certain statements that have affected the speakers, but they are also put in the position of the subject, hearing the statements being said with no explanation or context. I chose to have the audio played in an almost completely darkened space because I wanted attention to be on the words, with no visual distractions so that they could feel the complexity of the situation, which arises when someone speaks to you. My intention is for the viewer to look at the photographs and see objects made from fleeting moments, which had an impact on these specific individuals, but they must also hear the words, allowing them to feel how swiftly language can enter your mind and become a part of you.