Tag: watermelon

Cameron Hammond – Becky Billman (Cake Magazine #14, 2014)

Browsing Hammond’s work I’m reminded of Elmer Batters.

That’s not the most straight forward association, at first blush. However, both produce work that employs a limited but sharply honed visual grammar as well as never attempts to hide the fact that it’s driven by obsessive preoccupation with specific paraphiliae–with Batters it’s stockings, feet and low riding undies, with Hammond it’s sun-drenched summer scenes with swimsuits, water, the utilitarian re-purposing of waist bands and bra straps in lieu of pockets and a sort of hedonistic preoccupation with stereotypical summer/beach foods (popsickes, hotdogs, ice cream, etc.).

What’s interesting is despite Hammond’s limited palette, he does actually make remarkably distinctive work. And what I like about this image in particular is that it’s a good bit more flagrant in it’s coy flirtation than the rest of the work–which presents it more in an off-hand, casual voyeurism sort of mode;whereas this is more confrontational.

But what really works is the synergy between depiction and technique. This image feels very bright to me and I find myself squinting at it to take it in–much as I probably would if I was standing more or less where the camera is. (It’s too contrast-y to be an Eggleston but it uses color to a strikingly similar effect.)

There are other indications in Hammond’s work that this effect isn’t an accident, rendering the accomplishment quite the feat of technical ingenuity.

Source: philook

Giangiacomo Pepe – Untitled (2013)

PART I

Much of this rocks my socks: it’s shot on film, contains explicit nudity and the model is my ‘type’ to a T–thin with small breasts and geeky glasses; for good measure: throw in my permanent association of watermelons wjth Tsai Ming-liang’s brilliant (screw the critics) and perverse The Wayward Cloud.

There are at least two things about it that bother me, however. I don’t want to bring the body hair fetishism fire down, so let me start by saying: when it comes to body hair I believe–without equivocation– your body, your rules.

The trouble is due to the ubiquity of utterly depilated female bodies, undue cultural pressure against body hair exists and by existing it makes it more of a struggle to go your own way.

There’s the matter of her amputated legs, too. (Such is never justified–especially in the context of images featuring full-frontal nudity–but at least there is a compositional sense to it–her navel marks the center of the frame, the upper frame edge just misses her raised forearm and the concrete door jamb running along the second vertical third.)

I feel compelled to compare/contrast Pepe’s work Lina Scheynius, Igor Mukhin and Ren Hang. Yes, there’s extensive variations in styles, themes and tone: Scheynius is playful, Mukhin, insular and unflinching and Hang walks a fine line between confronting taboos and centering them on his audience.

In a similar vein, Pepe leads with his fetishizing of the female body.

The feels such fetishizing gives me are a complicated knot I’ve been wrestling to unravel for more than half a decade.

(PART II)

Source: giangiacomopepe