final show hanging

some impressions of the hanging for the show. the lowest image is the final order and selection.

oil on board

To add another, local character to this series I used one of the old victorian fairy-images of -The Cottingley Fairies- which were being taken by Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths, two young cousins who lived in Cottingley. The photographs were taken in 1917. Elsie was 16 years old and Frances was 10. These photographs were believed to be genuine, as no one was able to prove they were fake until the early 80´s, when Elsie and Frances admitted that the photographs were fake using cardboard cutouts of fairies copied from a popular children´s book (princess mary´s gift book) of the time. Frances continued, that some photographs were genuine, whilst others were fake.

From a today´s point of view it seems incredible, that images like this are taken for real for over 60 years. Photoshop, and digital, available photo-manipulation seems to be the reason for the stronger scepticism, although the Cottingley Fairies show, that a 16- and 10 year old girl can create fake images with such an impact - without photoshop!

I only painted a section of one of the photos, as in this case I wanted the -fake object- to be strongly in the foreground. I quite enjoy playing with the obviousness and the hidden in this series.

four examples of photographs by Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths made with cutouts of fairies.

comparison between -Princess mary´s gift book (right)- and -The Cottingley Fairies-

oil on wood / 20 x 20 cm

oil on wood / 40 x 30 cm

These are the only paintings in the series (so far) that had no template. They refer to extreme macro/microphotography and fhotos, that are completely out of focus, which often offer nothing more than a blur. These images are completely dependent on text and description that come with the image, as noone can decode only from the photograph alone. The interpretation of the observer is dependent on this information, which offers a wide room for manipulation of perception.

In the case of my series the surrounding information is of myth and paranormality, so the viewer connects this information to the blur, and interprets it in this context.

oil on wood / 20 x 25 cm

As Britain has colonies, a lot of exotic animals have been brought in the country. Some people believe, that panthers & pumas, once brought in the country as sweet baby cuties has been set free in the countryside as they grew too big to keep them. The website - www.bigcatsinbritain.org- shows among other things big-cat hunters who spend their nights in tents placed in areas where big cats were spotted. There is no objective proof for the existence of cats of prey in the UK, but the myth keeps the story alive and many hunters in their tents, passing sleepness nights for the proof of their existence.

oil on board / 35 x 30 cm

This image is, analog to the image with the child, based on a snapshot. I think, many people will need their time to find the actual abnormality in the image (it´s the two circles that appear in the upper part of the painting). These two circles can be interpreted as orbs, which are energy fields or ghosts. This image plays with the viewers obsessive urge to interpret. So do many other paintings in this series as well.

oil on wood / 70 x 60 cm

When I did my research for this series, I realized that absolutely everything apearently unexplainable within a photo - dots provoked by random reflections, dust, dirty lens etc. - can be read as a paranorman phenomenon. Mostly these images are the result of wrong handling of the camera, or of errors in the photographic process.

Translated into my painted series, every error in my painting could result in similar interpretation. Theoretically only - of course- as it is a human-made, subjective painting process. It will never seriously be read in that way, but with this ridiculousness & humour in my work I want to question images in general via painting. Interpretation is manipulable

oil on board / 20 x 15 cm

oil on board / 20 x 20 cm

During my research for appropriate templates I was often surprised, that simple dots or lines within an image are being interpreted as paranormal phenomena. Often I needed quite a lot of time to find the actual protagonist of the image. Sometimes huge arrows dot to a tiny abnormality or error in the image, which is interpreted as phenomena or even proof for a certain myth. These paintings are based on very simple mark making. the horizontal backround indicates a landscape, then a tiny stroke is created with a dry brush in the wet paint, which indicates the phenomenon, abnormality or irregularity. The surrounding context forms the meaning of these simple, almost abstract paintings.

damien tutorial

NAME OF TUTOR: damien

DATE: 27.7.11

STUDENT TO FILL IN:

What points were discussed during the tutorial?

We talked about the -mystery- series I intend to show in the final show, and how the images interact with each other. I told Damien about my starting point, when I wanted to make the painting as much photo-like as I could. After a few paintings I felt that I should give the painting itself a role in the work as well, and the validity of painted content. Especially I wanted to use the ridiculousness of trying to use painting as a proof. Damien seemed to like the very obviously manipulated ones. It added some humour to the whole series.

Damien mentioned warminster as a town that is very related to ufos. I said, I am a bit unsure about the backround of the paintings (wall) – whether to paint it in a certain colour or not. We talked about red (pseudo-horror) and black (colour of the unexpected). Trying in photoshop would be the best solution. Furthermore Damien told me about local mythodology, such as panthers that once were transported to the uk and then escaped in the wild.

The idea arose to make fake-posters of a missing mystery thing (panther, dinosaur...) and hang them around in a certain area.

2. What issues will be thinking further on as a result of this conversation?

I will definitely think further about the poster idea ( especially because as a graphic designer I made many posters, and I was always looking for a way to combine these skills), probably will happen after the show/course, as at the moment I want to concentrate on finishing my painted-series. I will also think further about the sense of humour in my work.

STAFF COMMENTS:

Max’s current series of paintings is progressing well, the looser marks are an interesting playful development. It would be advisable to paint more than is needed and then whittle down a strong final selection for the degree show. Considering the cryptozoological aspect (Nessie) the curious phenomenon of alien big cats in the UK would be of interest ( HYPERLINK "http://www.ukbigcats.co.uk/" http://www.ukbigcats.co.uk/) and adds a local twist to the tale (the Beast of Sydenham). Martin Healy’s work was discussed: his work often explores superstition and belief, including a UFO series (link to a clip of his Warminster documentary: HYPERLINK "http://www.martinhealy.net/watcher3.html" http://www.martinhealy.net/watcher3.html). The idea of planting misleading information in the public domain calls to mind the work of Jamie Shovlin or Maurizio Cattelan. Film stills could also be employed as a source of imagery, see Peter Rostovsky’s Transport Series.

written paper

At the beginning of the course I was very much into painting

portraits - mostly black and white - of people, that are often overseen,

such as tramps and alcoholics, but in my opinion had very

interesting faces. I encountered them randomly on the streets,

asked to photograph them, then I painted them on a large scale in

the majority of cases - celebrating the uncelebrated.

Within the course I started to question scale, experimented with

different formats, played with colouring, but I kept on working

with random encounters - not only in the context of humans, but

also objects and street-scenes (CCTV), and lastly with images

I found on the internet. I began to get more and more interested

in the gap between the actual, visual content of an image, and

the social context that it was being made in. I got very interested

in the manipulative nature of images, and how they change our

perception of facts. I started deliberately misleading the viewer

and tried to misdirect the interpretation of the observer within

a painting. The source of the image and the actual context is

disguised through my selection process, which only shows a

fragment of the whole story. So the viewer starts to build his own

subjective story of the painting, which is dependent on his very

own perception and experience.

Later on, I started to include the fake subject matter in my work.

I became interested in imagery and myths that arose with the

support and „proof “ of fake imagery. My own experimentation

with faking photographs (without the help of photoshop) helped

me understand how easy it is to form content that misleads the

viewer. The painting of fake images adds another layer of fakeness

to it. Painting is less believable than photos, even in times of photoshop

we tend to believe what we see in photos, as photography

has a much more objective character than painting, where every

stroke is human-made, thereby subjective and not reliable. At the

moment I play with these properties of painting, adding simple

almost naive marks as ufo´s, ghosts etc. . This added humour and a

certain ridiculousness to my work that it did not contain before. I

make fun of the paintings inability to be valid as a proof, but at the

same time questioning the reliability of images in general.

After the course I´m planning to make a series which adapts the

visual language of -missing- posters, and insert my own ridiculous

content, such as a devised animal (lion, octopus, or a mixture of

both...), or maybe even just a simple painting mark, that is being

interpreted by the viewer.

I want to do further work on the hoax-character of my more recent

creations, maybe also with mixing silkscreen and painting.

oil on wood / 40 x 40 cm

Most ghost photos are based on a snapshot. It´s typical for these images, that the intention was not to photograph a ghost, or paranormal phenomenen, but the family, a group shot, or in this case a child. After the photographic process people find unexplainable things in the completed image.

Many fake ghost & UFO photos play with this typical given fact, and stage-manage a classical photosituation where they involve their -proof- in the backround, often out of focus, to support the mystery within the image.

The photo I painted is one of the first to be found on Google, when -Ghost- is being written in Google. I don´t know if the template I used is a deliberately staged image e.g with a fog machine, or it´s just a random dust-clowd provoked by the neighbour´s mowing machine, but this image is definitely one of the most-present images in the internet when it comes to ghost-imagery.

selfmade fake photos

it is surprisingly easy to fake photos, even without photoshop. I think, they are mostly even more successful if they are done analogue without manipulation afterwards, as people are rather looking for typical photoshop errors, such as wrong light / shadow, selection contour, resolution difference... .

two examples of fake photos of ufo and ghost I made myself with a tealight on a string and smoke machine.