dirt – Acetylene Eyes

Allison White – Scrubbed Clean (2014)

Looking at this I can’t help but compare and contrast with another image by janies. I featured 1.5ish years ago.

Comparing how and why both images work and in what ways that functionality is tied into the decision over whether they are in B&W or color are a worthwhile exercise.

I’ll leave that as sort of a bonus assignment because I’m currently fixating on a different association; namely: Juul Kraijer & specifically this photograph.

Wait! You admonish, wait… what does a high contrast image of a neck speckled with loam have fuck all to do with an low contrast image of a hand covered in twenty ladybugs?

Well, it’s partly the angle of view. White and Kraijer both favor a similar perspective. The former is more dimensional, the presentation of the latter, flatter but they both share a disembodied separation from any sort of definitive contextual connection.

I have zero way of knowing whether White knows Kraijer. But I appreciate the overlap in stylistic considerations and the work that those considerations is rendering far more than a certain other image maker who is currently shamelessly and one dimensionally aping Kraijer’s approach. (Looking at you, Evelyn Bencicova. Further, note how Bencicova’s borrowing of content without any obvious understanding of the unity between form and function in the work she’s referencing results in yes, pretty but ultimately muddled images.)

Source: allison-le

Jesús Llaría – no head (2014)

As in tune as I can be with logging my own process of reading images, this short circuits everything.

I’m not sure I can explain it without getting a little TMI but it reminds me of being fifteen. (Not that I saw anything like this in the flesh until almost a decade later…)

It reminds me of random, mundane things that would inexplicably trigger arousal so extreme it was actually painful.

I had already been chasing the same oxytocin/prolactin buzz for seven years as a way of smoothing out the jagged edges of my abusive adolescent existence and suddenly it was also effecting some sort of vaguely imagined autonomy over my own body.

As a friend puts it: it’s a real wonder all the masturbation didn’t inflict permanent nerve damage.

So yes: initially seeing this image resulted in me having to release some sexual tension.

Afterwards, I found myself enchanted by the way the image works. Although I’m not sure it’s ever justifiable to employ a frame as a means of dismembering a woman’s body, I can’t technically refute the decision as Llaría observes the dictum of amputating between joints instead of at them.

And there is a notable compositional logic supporting his choice. Note the repeated angle of the elbow which is not the model’s, the line of the lower half of the dresses’ buttons, the way the seam to the left of the lower button line softens the angel to echo that of the model’s right thigh only to have the same angle emerge again in the cocked angle of her right leg.

There’s also the matter of palate: excluding her bush, the image consists of three hues. The rust colored earth figures at the darker end of a spectrum that would include the more magenta tones in her skin; while the white in her slipper and dress are virtually identical. The blue of the dress makes everything else pop.

Let’s not forget texture, either–something about which I am often preoccupied. The skin doesn’t really have texture in this image; except juxtaposed between the dirt and the fabric of the dress the absence of texture becomes a null field. Unlike the ground or the dress you can’t imagine touching the model’s legs but you can recall what it was like to have touched such legs. The visual synesthesia suggests an insistent anti-objectification that subtly reminds that this is no less or no more than what you have always known.

I would be dreadfully remiss for also not mentioning that even though I am not female bodied and if I were I would not be comfortable wearing a dress, I’m more than a little obsessed with the dress.

pulmonaire:

(by jɑne.)

I love this. LOVE.

Originally, it was supposed to reblog via sporeprint Wednesday morning but was deleted for ‘violating one or more of Tumblr’s community standards’.

Huh? Why? It’s not like it’s risque. In fact, it’s downright tame compared to what I usual post and G rated by Tumblr standards.

I wonder if maybe there’s something afoul with the attribution? Both this post and the aforementioned deleted post are both sourced to a Flickr user with the alias hisplainjane–maybe that’s incorrect?

After scanning through her images I didn’t see this one. Granted, at present I am locked out of my account, so I guess it could be a restricted image. (Why on earth, though?)

On the other hand it is not exactly out of line with the rest of the work–even if it is of a much higher quality. Or perhaps I am just so jealous and awed as a result of it’s simplicity, surreality and ambiguity. I mean, Jesus Harold and Maude Christ, it’s goddamn dead fucking sexy.

It took longer than am willing admit– along with a good bit of lost sleep and an uncharacteristic stroke of good luck– but I found a cross post. This one lacks the nearly 25K notes.

Source: Flickr / hisplainjane