A small 6 page book consisting of three pictures of my friends on the same couch, with Virginia Lottery logos stretched across the images. I made this during a time period where my method for creating work was:
The main things I was looking/thinking about at the time were:
Memento Mori: (wiki link): Essentially artistic representations that are meant to serve as reminders of death. I was thinking/making a lot about death at the time. It is an absurd and frightening topic, and one I still think about a lot today. I have no real insights on death, it's really just something I puzzle over. I was thinking about work(ing) at the time as well which in my mind is essentially a direct parallel to death. Something that basically sucks for most people, and is an unavoidable aspect of life. Its like that quote "nothing is certain, except death and taxes" really implies that nothing is certain, except having to work and then die. I think also in parallel to this is my own personal frustrations with work: low pay, unfulfilling jobs, feeling I dont have enough time to pursue my personal interests. I think the topics of dying and leading a long life of unfulfilling work are so dark that I find them kind of funny. Anywho the main take away here is:
So at this point all that is really left is to sort through my harddrive for images which had poses that reminded me of classical paintings. I thought using all images of the same couch was a nice touch. All of these pictures were taken with on-camera flash so I repainted highlights and shadows because this was a technique I wanted to experiment with anyways. (you can see it most visiblly on folds/creases in fabrics). This "repainting" in photoshop also helped me experience a "deep connection" with hundreds of years of painting. The final step was to slap some tlacrotfolia on each image and call it a day.