Portfolio Research: Amy Friend- Celestial Interventions.

Dare all Luce

I really loved Amy Friend's work with older found photographs. If I had more time, I would've liked to have experimented with light in a similar fashion, as it is I probably will revisit the idea when I have time. I love how much light is in the work and the different feel it gives the work just by adding in the spots of light. The idea came from the theory that to take a photograph of someone is to take their soul, but by piercing holes into the photographs, Amy Friend allowed light to pass through the photograph and bring life to the photographs.

 “In a literal and somewhat playful manner,” Friend says. “I aimed to give the photographs back to the light, hence the title of the series, Dare alla Luce, an Italian phrase used to describe the moment of birth.”

I really love this collection of images and the way the framing and light work together to bring the focus to one particular part of the image. Your eyes immediately go to the centre, to the subject matter the artist wants you to see. The dots remove a lot of the detail where there are more of them grouped up, but I think in this case it works quite well for the image. There's an almost anonymous feel to the photographs and I like that aspect of them. I like the framing that works to make this effect possible, the dots under the horses chin for example, the grouping brings your eyes to that part of the image and almost frames where the person and horse meet creating one line or the framing of the bodies in the second image and the way they're the light even surrounded by cloud, they still stand out instead of getting lost in the image. There's something almost otherworldly about the  images and that's why they stood out from other research I've done. Her work is so different and even if the photographs aren't hers, she put a new spin in terms of presentation. I'd love to do something like this with my canvases, but with so little time, there is no time for mistakes, I think I'll leave my experimentation where it is and try this another time.