I guess this is the most comprehensive stuff I've been doing recently - they are portraits of child murderers. I know, Tammy Darkstuff, still in action. I'm not done with the top one, Graham Young, and very much "in progress" with this work. Very much, mostly building a house with LB and not working - but these are something I want to continue until I have a comfortable set.
I was inspired to start working on this after the Joker massacre in Colorado this summer. Although James Holmes, wasn't a kid - I started thinking about how he so desperately wanted to be an ICON. Or was crazy. I'm also thinking about ME wanting to have a baby and the possibility of getting some kind of devil child - like the little boy in the Tin Drum. So here, since I'm still in a bit of a rut technically with these cartoons - for good or bad - I thought I could cartoon kid killers. Commenting on, of course, a history of this going on, but also a problem that I believe will only amplify over time. Also thinking a lot about the portrait, color and line - amplifying and distorting what a photograph can do in a portrait.
I'm curious about a couple things:
1.When you look at these images, what do you see? What's intriguing, where are you lost?
2. Are you conscious of their photographic roots? This is something I'm trying to stress more and more, but know there is room to push the work.
3. Do you want to know more facts about the person?
4. Should I include these with drawings of my nieces, which I have also been making? I guess I'll post a few of those.
THANKS!
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ReplyDeleteTammy,
ReplyDeleteI think these portraits are very interesting for all the reasons that you mentioned. I think you are right that it is a phenomena that is becoming amplified. And I can also see the fear about having a baby, though I am pretty sure you are not going to have a devil spawn, I get it, I get that fear, like what if the absolute worst happens, what if evil happens, what if extreme mental illness happens. . . . and . . . let the downward worrying spiral begin. I guess that is what I think is intreating about child murderers - it is this ultimate extreme of everything that is strange and fucked up in our society. Then there is this things that's like kids are innocent, so either they were pure evil since birth or they have been lead astray by someone or something but either way it is sort of not their fault. And how do you reconcile that. . . .? How many child murders have their been in the last. . . what . . . century? Or how many can you find a picture of? Okay - let me answer your questions.
1. I see portraits of children, albeit intense looking children, but, non of which are identifiable to me, so I would not know that they were murderers unless you tell me. So I guess that is where I am lost. The bottom image of the boy with the orange background is the most striking to me. The look on his face is intense, sorry that is not the best descriptor, he looks like a child posing as an adult, and he looks like he is sizing me up as the viewer, but I can tell he is a kid, so I wonder where did he learn to look at someone like that, and though he is a kid I still feel a threatened.
2. I think especially the three portraits in this post have very strong photographic roots. They look like drawings of photographs to me. The one of the girl is a elementary school picture from school photo day. The top images of Graham Young looks very photographic to me as well, I think because the way you are drawing it in spots of tone looks like film grain or a very pixelated image.
3. I do want to know more facts about these people. Not too many facts. I don't really like to read. But a few facts would be nice. Like I mentioned before, I would not know who they are unless you tell me. I was trying to think how else you could show me that they are murderers. . . I think that is a leap that I wouldn't readily make, I don't think that anyone would really want to make that leap readily, so I do think that you sort of have to spell it out in some way.
4. I am really drawn to the images of your nieces. . . . hmmm I need to think about this question for a little bit.
More soon.
OK, I haven't read Kate's response because I don't want to be influenced by it, so I apologize if I repeat.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all - I can totally see how these were inspired by those fucked up pics of Holmes with the odd colored hair. The thing that was crazy to me -- and (digressing) inspiring to my work was that I felt he was acting out what he had seen in the movies. Also, did you see all the posts about how women on twitter were saying how "hot" he was? Tammy - I think you might want to investigate the psychology of women who have relationships with prisoners.
http://jezebel.com/5927828/disturbing-james-holmes-twitter-groupies-think-hes-hot-sexy-cute
Yet another reason never to tweet.
The other thing that your mention of Holmes and these kids made me think of is this article about genius children/prodigies -- in the Times recently. I haven't read the whole thing. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/04/magazine/how-do-you-raise-a-prodigy.html?pagewanted=all
1. There's something very Lee Harvey Oswald in the first drawing on this post. Is that one finished or are you experimenting with leaving more whitespace? It could be interesting to leave more white space -- that first one is also much more tabloid-style or evidenciary photo-style to me, because of the halftone/digitized quality and the use of black and white. It makes me think of Weegee also and big headlines like "WHITEY BULGER CAUGHT!" Anyway, the Oswald visual similarity also makes me think about how these images could be faked -- because that one of Oswald was so widely believed to be a fake -- I am thinking of this photo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lho-133A.jpg -- and my Kennedy obsession continues. Those photos probably aren't even that similar.
How large do these end up for you?
2. So in terms of stressing the photographic roots -- to me, these three are very different in their approach and root. One (Oswald Jr.) is a courtroom/arrest photo, runs in the newspaper, he's under state control. Two is the school portrait Before the bad act took place, and I think the stripes in the sweater read as blood - eyes in that one are freaky too. Three is a photo that I think I've seen before of a kid while in the courtroom on trial. He is controlled but looks fucking evil. Three is also much more about TV than photo to me.
To me the middle one is the most innocent - and the blood to me makes the kid both a victim and an aggressor - makes me wonder about how he got to the breaking point, and was it actually someone else's fault. I think I like that one the best. It also reminds me of your niece which is creepy and if you know that it makes the work even stronger maybe. I also think of how this could be any "star" or prodigy looking back on their roots.
Another thing to notice is that 1 and 3 have adult hands in the picture - and 2 doesn't - just an observation. I think I am reading in a lot about control into these images.
3. I think I do want to know the basics of the story, as well as the time frame. But I also want to know if there was a chance the kid didn't want to do it. I really, really want to know if the kid had been abused. I think I want them to have a reason to have done what they did.
ReplyDelete4. If I try to make sense of putting the images with the nieces with the pictures of the kid killers, I think about how a friend of mine who just became a mom was saying that she thinks boys are born to parents who are able to take care of them -- and immediately pointed to kid murderers. Like, she thinks that people who have girls have it easier because with boys you have more likelihood that they'll be violent killers later in life, and her superstition is that she knows a lot of "good parents" who won't raise violent men. This was just part of a longer conversation with her and involved a lot of mumbo-jumbo on her part -- but the placement of your nieces next to known killers makes me think about how a kid can be seen in so many different ways - violent, but also still a kid, malleable state of their personality at that age, etc. Like that Hitler was an artist before he did all that bad stuff. I think it's really creepy that you want to put your nieces next to these scary kids, but that is probably a strength of the work. But maybe if you know some are killers and some not, it becomes a weird game to figure out which ones aren't killers? I'm not sure about putting them together, but maybe I would need to see the exact pairings.
Great to see these! Could be cool to have a show of small portraits done from school pictures as a set -- just an idea.
One more article.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/us/juvenile-killers-and-life-terms-a-case-in-point.html?hp
The child murderer work appears more obviously photo based than the other work. For me, it verges a little on Photoshop filter-ish, whereas I have never really thought about that in the context of your other work. I also find the compositions in the pictures of your nieces more compelling. I think it's interesting how you use the vantage point (essentially the camera angle I guess) to convey a kind of dread or malaise, and how you manage to evoke that in a cartoon of little kids. In the bathtub, the kids look so vulnerable. In the picture of the kid in the kitchen, I think about all of the potentially dangerous stuff on the counter. It could so easily just be "cute," but somehow the pictures make me feel uneasy.
ReplyDeleteThe child murderer subject is obviously very interesting to me, and on so many levels. I don't know if I need to know more information for this work, however. I could see a series with each image titled with the person's name. The last image in the post is the one I most respond to. His gaze is unsettling, and I like how you have captured the light on his shirt collar.
I think you could potentially show the child murders with pictures of your nieces. It's hard to say without seeing the complete work side by side, but I imagine I'd make an interpretation about the potential for evil in children, is that a crap shoot, etc? Could any child become a murderer?...
GREAT! SO VERY HELPFUL (yelling into the computer), feels really good to get some feedback.
ReplyDeleteThank you!!