Research...

Pablo Picasso:

Proberbly most renound for his cubist works which you wither love or hate. I am one that love his work especially the cubist works. Through abstracting the human form he tells a much more comprehensive story capturing their identity and emotions than a realistic image could ever do. By simpily adjusting their tone, line and shape i believe he doesn't abstract the person he makes them more realistic portraying them for who they really are not a posed dolled up image that conforms to the social ideals of beauty of that time.

Student work:

Philippa Shipley:

Philippa is a second year Digital Photographics student who has done some work on identity and use of collage approach. She looked at portraiture and identity of different eras and tried to bring in the aesthetics of that particular era's through her collages. Her collages are very simple but effective at getting the message of that era across, also her images are highly influenced by Ava Seymour for the simple yet humorous aesthetics. Phillipa's cut-out aesthetic of herself definately creates a focal points in every image and makes it very easy to read. You can view her blog here. My two favourites are the Victorian and present times as you can really grasp her idea through them...

I can take from her that creating the focal point is the key to portraiture and also the layers she creates within the image give great strength to the aesthetic she is trying to achieve.

Ava Seymour:

Ava Seymour has some halarious collages as mentioned previously they are very basic and often technically incorrect i.e. light sources of images dont match, but it this almost careless humility that gives credit to her work. I especially enjoy the images that were shown in the Sue Crockford Gallery in Auckland, you can see them here. The way she captures an everyday, "picture perfect' image and then completely makes you go "what the..." by placing other images in the scene is where her humor comes across. Though these images stand out from in the scene they are not random images they are completely relevant to the scene for instance 'Rubber Utoipa' or 'Rubber Love' from the 'Rubber Lovc' series where she has a beautiful bedroom and bathroom then placing a scuba diver and two slightly strange people dressed in rubber fetish outfits in the scene is just halarious.