Lauren Kalman
Kalman investigates the role of precious metals and stones as tools for beautification, upending their standard function through temporary transgressions of the body.
I am invested in using assertive and powerful performances of the female body in relationship to the built environment, wearable objects, and systemic power structures. I explore this territory through the lens of craft media.
Personal Understanding: The same work she did is about acne, skin acne in adolescence. it had never occurred to me to consider the bumps or scars across the body as a set of “blooms,” a showy testament to the process of maturation.The way she wears her jewelry is interesting because it's different from a necklace or ring based on the symptoms of a skin disease, because at first I thought it was a body accessory like a pet.If there's anything going on in the future about body-related projects, I'll try it in this interesting way.
# Blooms 2009
Form(https://the-artifice.com/spotlight-on-lauren-kalman/)
Lauren Kalman, Blooms, Efflorescence, and Other Dermatological Embellishments (Cystic Acne, Back), 2009, gold-plated silver acupuncture needles embellished with semi-precious stones and freshwater pearls, imitation leather, stainless steel tweezers and inkjet print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Rotasa Foundation, 2013.63A-B, © 2009, Lauren Kalman
Kalman pushes the boundaries of her established tendency to push her own body’s limits. Blooms, Efflorescence, and Other Dermatological Embellishments series uses body and facial piercings to mimic acne and other skin conditions. Skin conditions are seen as something to erase and the beauty industry which historically targets women makes billions every year on the fear of being seen as unattractive. On the other hand, alternative movements of beauty often revolve around body and facial piercings. Kalman bridges the traditional and alternative through the series successfully by piercing her own body; often showing the physical trauma the piercing causes. From a farther distance, the body jewelry looks like many skin conditions but the blemishes are pearls, natural stones, and gold; the beauty of ornate and shiny jewelry tricks the viewer in seeing the beauty in the skin’s natural inconsistencies. The lower class idea of skin blemishes and bumps is challenged by using expensive looking ornaments as a desirable beauty regime.
As mentioned above, often in the photos Kalman does not edit out the physical traumas, such as blood and irritation around the openings of piercings. In the series, she also shows the peircing tools and jewelry after it was taken out of her body. Blooms is a sort of turning point for Kalman, even though in previous series she had used her own body in a similar way.To expresses the vulnerability of her work as well as the dedication. From this, she would grow even further as an artist, and begin to depict the long-running narrative and body sacrifice in more abstract way.
Her long-term ideas have connected body image, media, class, and style; the visual importance she places in these ideas is often juxtaposed by how our visual world expresses the same ideas. These two forms of expression typically fight against each other creating compelling and uncomfortable images and short films. She has continued to separate herself from the rest by addressing cultural taboos and pushing the boundaries of what it means to put body and mind in her artwork.
Ashley Armitage
Body hair, curves and rolls, PMS and periods
From(https://www.flickr.com/photos/ashleyarmitage/22218417193/in/photostream/)
Personal understanding:
Her work also inspires me to look at the physical changes we experienced in developmental times from an observer's perspective, rather than to despise our bodies with a distasteful eye, and to experience shyness and show my body .I think can be used in the filming of her sweet color scheme and coordination.
In a recent study by Yahoo health it has been indicated that 94% of American teenage girls have fallen victim to body shaming at some point in their life. The statistics are gruesome and in my own experience as a photographer working with girls and young women for the better part of my photographic explorations, body insecurities is something that so many young females struggle with daily. Having been a victim of body shaming myself, I like many women out there are tired of trying to be something we just aren’t. Like us, don’t like us, it’s ok because we like ourselves. Why on earth are we subject to these hyper unrealistic fake standards that are not achievable in any way or fashion?
The Instagram handle Ladyist is suitable to Ashley’s work as she’s trying to changed these ideas of girlhood that have been so imprinted on us from a young age. Her work is relevant as it seeks to create a shift in not only how femme bodies are seen but in regards to how femme bodies view themselves. We can only hope that from photographers like Ashley change is inspired and that more females will start accepting themselves for the beautifully diverse beings we are.
Period stained underwear. Armpit hair fashioned with brightly coloured clips. Stretch marked buttocks and boobs with spots are just some of the images belonging to Seattle based photographer, Ashley Armitage. The young feminist photographer recently received her BFA in Photomedia and focuses her work on female representation. Ashley’s vision is to have women painted by women. Her work has brought up mixed responses on Instagram however, with people questioning her choice to not use the stereotypical cis model as her muse. Despite the backlash on Instagram, Ashley perseveres with her aim of authentic female representation.
Ashley found her femme driven meaning through her frustration with the way in which the media represents femininity. You know the imagery all too well of thin, white, able-bodied gender normative women. Ashley’s close female friends are captured in intimate portraits that oppose the principal narrative that society has constructed surrounding the meaning of being female. Showing femmes with natural, diverse beauty, Ashley photographs real girls with real bodies, imperfections untouched, in a dreamy, hazey pastel dream.
“I create images of the female body because historically these images have been controlled by men. We were always the painted and not the painters. I’m trying to take back what’s ours and explore what it means to have a body that has always been defined by a male hand”
Ashley states that her shoots often materialize when she is simply hanging out with her girl gang and she happens to have her camera around to capture the most intimate moments of girlhood, moments that I believe are eloquently described by Britney Spears in her song, ‘I’m Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman’ released in 2001.