Show Your Work And Talk About The Concept Of It

Contempt or Concept?

Marcio

Did you ask Abbie for permission?

This is approved

OK I'll have a go with it..



As long as I firm hand on the stick, everything is All Right
(I know what you all are thinking)

This is war horse, it's a steel welded sculpture I made out of cut nails (masonary nails) some several thousand nails with several thousands welds. The sculpture was made to depict the loyal service of war horse as utilized by the military in times of war all through out history.

The sculpture has been my signature piece to date, perhaps. I was very satisfied with how it came out.

Recently though I started seeing how much I identified with this broken war horse, I started to see how this sculpture was somewhat of a self portrait of myself and my own civil service and the scars that were left as in the war horse.

The concept of this sculpture was not to make a self portrait, put it's just one of those subconscious occurrences that happens in the creative process.

I'm not sure if this fits your theme, but I hope it does. Thanks!

Psychedelic Topsy Turvy Thoughts Fractal

Aphrodite gives life to the sculpture of Pygmalion. Pygmalion carved the white marble of a beautiful woman and fell in love with that statue of his creation. He prays to Aphrodite, on the feast day of goddess and upon hearing his prayers Aphrodite gave life to the pure white marble statue.

Once Galatea, the statue, is alive she is very insecure and apprehensive about being alive. [aren't we all?] Aphrodite assures and comforts her.

The symbols of Aphrodite are roses, white doves, golden apple which are included in the photograph and the model wears a chiton. The complexion of the model assuming the character of Galatea(she who is milk white) is as close to white marble as possible. Galatea sits on a pedestal on which she was carved.

there is nothing behind the mask
things have no essence
they arise
change
and disappear
physical or mental
makes no difference
all objects
are impermanent

ed meredith
03/28/2020

When things don't go the way you want them to, mess it all up and be careful not to over blend.



That's my concept in all things.

Of course, ideas come and are sometimes "noticed" enough to ignite some imagination and then processed into fruition on occasion. My goal lately is to recognize those thoughts more often that wander in and out of my semi-consciousness and to elaborate and think them up while determining if they might be worthy of the effort before experimenting and seeing if they can come together successfully.

In the Winter months especially, I use the season which is not particularly pleasant or as fruitful for me outdoors, to go back over recent years of captures stored on the PC and evaluate their potential for fine art possibilities. This helps keep me busy inside during cold months until I find the weather more suitable to my desires for more exploration of local surroundings and even revisiting past locations.

Here's a recent example of using several photographic captures from different places and subjects that when examined once again, somehow clicked in my mind to bring together another concept using a little imagination and a little expression. Sometimes all you need is a little spark to ignite the fuel of imagination. For me, a visual spark (usually something unusual) can lead to a piece entirely different from what I thought when the capture was originally recorded. Combining, reworking, adding, subtracting, and imagining are my keys to producing, if and when my mind is open enough to become aware of the potential to create with it... not just record.

My concept of "Hazbots", short for Hazard Robots, who are programed for dangerous field work usually having to do with power lines and high voltage hazards.

The idea came from images I captured of a giant yellow crash dummy mounted in front of the MVA (Motor Vehicle Administration) in Glen Burnie Maryland to remind people to use their seat-belts, and some power lines running through a community in Anne Arundel County Maryland. I combined the two because I thought it presented a possible futuristic view of what would presently be considered surrealism in the sci-fi fantasy genre'.

Keeping in mind my basic propensity (as outlined above) for combining unrelated subjects well after their initial captures...

In 08-30-17, I captured a whitetail fawn curled up and resting. I also captured a white mushroom growing out of the ground. 3-6-20, I combined the two together for a surreal image of the fawn resting atop the white mushroom with the grass all around and a dark vignette.

This one if from a series called "memories of a landscape". I tried to depict the concepts of memory, time and past.



Hand holding a polaroid of a landscape. In the background of the picture is the same landscape.

On occasion my imagination puts together a composition that may not sit too well with all viewers. I can tell because although I'm fairly pleased with the technical results, the work receives much less in the way of likes, comments, and views. I believe however that the work delivers a message or makes a point that although hard to swallow, non-the-less has validity albeit allegorical. These pieces seem to lend themselves very heavily toward the "Meme" genre' and usually the underlying meaning is enhanced with text.

"Game, set, match". (sports, tennis) An expression commonly used at the conclusion of a tennis match to indicate that a competitor has won. (idiomatic, by extension) An expression indicating finality, announcing that a series of events—usually involving some form of rivalry—has reached a conclusion.



In this version, I couldn't help myself to also include the quote, "Game Over Man, Game Over!". The quote was famously used by Private William Hudson (Bill Paxton) in the movie "Aliens".

Once in a great while I will capture something and later try and come up with a short poem related to the imagery. This was the case in the piece below of an image of tree roots on a hiking path at Lake Waterford Park in Pasadena, Maryland and it's affect on our lives as we travel the path to who we become.. I embedded the short poem over the image in an effort to exemplify something wise or poignant...

Feeling Left Out

A color select OOF (Out Of Frame), also known as OOB (Out Of Bounds) image of a Father and his boy and girl on a walk at Fort Smallwood Park in Pasadena, Maryland.

Photographs are only a capture of a moment in time that may result in an impression for the viewer which is out of context. That doesn't mean however that the point or message it conveys is any less valid. I consider it a great advantage that can be used by the photographer/artist.

I felt as if the girl was not getting the attention the boy was getting so I emphasized this by creating a "color selected" image showing the father and son in color on the inside bordered image while the girl appears to be on the outside in black and white, her head down as if to be saddened by the lack of attention. The "Selective Color" as well as the "Out Of Frame" technique both help in conveying the story and emotion for this composition.

BTW, Not that I'm opposed to it but all the figures depicted were from one original photograph capture. Nothing was added or moved as it relates to the family. Some portions were of course covered over to create the OOF portion more convincingly.

Hi David,
I am not aware about what you are talking about. What are the kind of topics I have to ask for perdition before starting them?



Hi Abbie,
Thank your for the approval.



Roger,
Your work concept reminds me what Siri Hustvedt wrote in her essay called Yonder: "I think the very idea of that place has given us a sense of ground, order, and continuity that is more rare than common. And that indisputable firmness of place is what allowed us all to go far away."

An other essay from her called Gatsby's Glasses she says: " All characters are born of this effort to be another person. And its success is rooted in the grounded self."


Mario,
I believe all sincere work of art is a kind of self portrait often without the artist realizing it. After all, if you ere expressing something you feel and urge to transmit (to others or back to yourself) then it is always about you, about your emotional state and memories attached to it (and vice versa). The older I get and the more work I have to look back after a while, the more I feel I learn about myself and my own artistic works. Why I did what I did and in that specific way.


Rose,
if it is the concept of your work, then it fits the topic theme. :)
Abstract works are usually powerful in the conceptual aspect.


Damyon,
I like the classic references specially with nude works. My nude photographs are mostly inspired on classic sculptures and paintings. I once did a whole series with Bathsheba bath theme.


Ed Meredith,
Your work concept brings to my mind what Antonio Damasio says about the mind. That we are not the platonic and Cartesian division between body and mind. The mind is a product of the body, created by the assembling information from many parts of the brain and for the body own use. It means that we are not a mind (or spirit) installed in a body. We are the body as is the mind. Of course it should not be mistaken with the double of the self (the "I" and the self-narrative, or the conscious and the unconscious).
The ice shape even reminds a bit the nervous system.


Lisa,
This is a great concept and I believe in it not only for the arts but for the life. Today's civilization is about control, power and not letting go, it reflects the fear we have for the casual, spontaneous, unpredictable, and it reflects on our work and expression as it does in the art today. The super reality theme, the "perfect" representation of a reality, the art destination to the material and tangibility appreciation of the object representation. At the end, every control tend to a certain repression, repression of the spontaneous, the natural, the letting go the inner expression even if we don't understand it consciously but trust the harmony, pasterns and rhythms that comes from it, and that please our cognitive experiences.

As I wrote to Mario, by being spontaneous and letting go, I feel I can learn more about myself when I look back at my past works and start to recognize some pasterns on them. Things I didn't planned. I just felt it so I went with my guts.


Brian,
It is interesting you found a way to play with the material you have accumulated during the summer, so you can come with new workings through the winter time. There is a documentary I saw about copyright laws and so, where they say that nothing comes from nothing. "Everything is a Remix" (the name of the documentary). Together with that there is also the fact that playing is the source of creativity.


Matthias,
You got a interesting concept which fits the photographic media, since every photograph refers to something that suggest an end, the past, and so memory. Even if in reality it is not true, but it is what the photographic media transmit to us.

Marcio

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That's what was meant

My apology Abbie.
I am reading it now.

Questioning Identity

"Even tho' I know it's only
Me and my dreams
That drive me so let me go please
Let me go onto tomorrow
One day at a time
Now I know the only foe is time

22,000 days, 22,000 days it's not alot,
It's all you got 22,000 days
22,000 nights, 22,000 nights, it's all you know
So start the show and this time
Feel the flow and get it right!" ~ Graeme Edge, The Moody Blues

A young lady watches as changes develop in front of her. It is out of her control. Things are not according to the plan written in the land of illusionary perfection. The dominoes in life fall in more of a haphazard... and yet, structured way. Organized chaos! We're along for the ride of our lives. Would it be better any other way?

The concept of all my paintings is to give me & the viewer a good feeling.

For me, color & texture is beautiful, so I amplify color & texture in my art.

My style is impressionism. It allows room for imagination. My art doesn't tell me or the viewer what to think, it simply opens the conversation.

Is life but a dream?
Will our dreams end when life on earth is done?
Or will we dream another life when this dream is gone?




David Dehner

Have a seat, let's play. It'll ease your anxiety.

Peaceful

Maybe I watch the news too much, but this is how I feel...

Contain nudity:
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/eros-and-the-pain-of-love-x-marcio-faustino.html

Cupid is the Roman god of love. He is the counterpart of the Greek god called Eros, the god of erotic love, the painful desire of what is not possessed, of what is somewhere else, inciting the imagination about the absent desired other.

Her eyes gazing the void while she is deep immersed in thoughts. Her hands as trying to reach and hold the pain inside. As Siri Hustvedt points out, the somatic experience induced by thoughts are no less real than a direct somatic experiences out in the world. Or as Hannah Arendtsaid, every emotion is a somatic experience. The source of our imagination and thinking are our feelings. Our feelings are the interpretation and meanings given to what our body senses experience. According to Antonio Damasio, the mind is a product of our body, not a distinct apart from it.

The image has a kind of movement, she is not still but moving, either in a bodily sense reacting to her feelings or in a mental sense of the dizziness, caused the mental travel.

Such movement in the image is not only suggested by her body expression and composition but also by the backdrop in a leaning position. The rugged backdrop is a curtain which suggest the scene is in a private setting. We look not as spectators of the scene but as a voyeur of what was supposed to be behind curtains. On the other hand, it also symbolizes a stage background of a performed act, like in a theater, like a fancy sculpture. 

Cupid was the son of Mercury, the winged messenger of the gods, and Venus, the goddess of love....

What would the softwoods on the earth like planet far off in another galaxy look like? Similar to earth but with a few changes.

This image is from a series of graphic art I created over the last few days. The concept is what it means "Hardcore Streets", the idea is that street wisdom keeps life real, close to the ground and keeps you from getting snookered. This type of graphic is simple commercial art (the skull was difficult to draw); I've inserted the names of large cities throughout the USA to expand the market. As usual I don't expect sales from this artwork, but it's from the heart and expresses a point of view. If I feel like I have an idea, I just go with it until I burn out and then it's on to the next thing. This type of graphic art does a lot better my other venue... I made a sale today after one day online, a total shock!





"I'm an emotional gangster. I cry once every month." Cardi B

Thanks for the information DePietro.

As a concept, the image is both simple and complex. I love to study weather patterns and clouds. I am always looking out for unusual cloud formations. Fortunately, Iceland is a country of both extreme weather and constantly changing cloud patterns. A bit of luck, yes, to capture this kind of image but on my trip to Iceland I was able to capture several interesting weather patterns just by keeping my eyes open and watching the horizon. In this image, a rainstorm is approaching Krafla in northern Iceland.

Hi---I'm old but new and trying to get my feet wet in the community. I hope to put up new stuff, but here is an old digital piece that I love.

There is a lot of freedom and joy in this piece, most of the momentum coming from me figuring out how to paint water as well as receiving encouragement from my Uncle. I always come back to this piece when I need to remember a little innocence and playfulness.

I suppose the concept for this photograph may be best understood by reading the description.

We Are All One Race - Human, watercolor

In this work I wanted to create a conceptual piece. I chose several ideas and tried to blend them into one. The first thought was: How do I bring together an artwork that shows growth and human potential. I chose a flower. The center of the flower is a yin yang symbol, and it is growing from a written stem explaining, "We Are All One Race". The leaves are written out explaining in answer, "Human". The petals growing out from the center of the flower are human hands of a wide variety of cultural diversity. I chose watercolor because the medium flows together so nicely and almost always creates a beautiful artwork.

The meaning of Yin Yang is: a concept of dualism, describing how seemingly opposite or contrary forces may actually be complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and how they may give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another.

"Human relation and feelings. How our physical body deals with our unlimited emotions, how our soul expression is reflected on material goods. Who are we? What lies behind our mask?"

I turned mannequins into humans.

Manhattan Shaken: I wanted to experiment taking photo in high ISO and also learn slow speed techniques - we were at the crystal point at Hoboken at The Stevens Institute Of Technology, Hoboken NJ USA on 01/18/2013 late night in a Frigid Cold Weather, when all my setting was done a thunder occurred abruptly as I clicked and shaken the photo giving this result - edited for nice effect and presentation - hope you like it.

First I would like to thank you, Marcio Faustino for such a thought provoking thread.

Despite my having what I think of as an analytical mindset it never occurred to me that I would have what one would term as a 'concept' (philosophically speaking) when setting out to photograph 'ANY' subject.

I learned early on that the true 'art' of photography is to portray a three dimensional subject via a two dimensional medium. As any photographer worth their weight in a silver halide solution will understand this is done through the use of light through the lens of a camera.

Said light may be ambient, and/or added light (provided by a 'outside' source) which culminates in the finished product. Notwithstanding the principle that Ansel Adams taught us: (To paraphrase) “there are two parts to every photograph...the film negative and the print. [ for you 'techie's' this may be translated into...the image on your memory card and the finished product once run through the digital photo editor]

Nevertheless---thanks to you, Marcio---I have now realized that since the beginning of my entering the world of photography each of the photographs I have made is indeed a part of me. The good ones, the bad ones, and the ones that I am most pleased with.

As for articulating the 'concept' of any of my images? I am afraid that most remain an enigma.

Meanwhile I suppose it will have to suffice, for now, that when I set out to make this photograph I simply did my best to capture this three dimensional scene in a two dimensional medium in hopes of come as close to bringing it to 'life' as possible.

Thanks in advance to anyone that took time to read this,

Walter

The concept behind this piece is the idea American Dream home and feathering one's nest.

If you say that someone is feathering their nest, you mean that they are getting a lot of money out of something, so that they can lead a comfortable life.

In other words Home Sweet Home.

Concept: Communication

Words lose meaning when they are surrounded by flowery language designed to cover up the writer's lack of original thought.

School essay writers who struggle to meet word count requirements learn to fill in space by with endless cliche phrases.

As George Orwell stated "bad writing results from corrupt thinking".

In the business world, one learns to write concisely to get the point across instead of losing the entire message among verbal flotsam.

The Buggle's second album had a song called "I am a camera"

There, by the waterside
Here, where the lens is wide
You and me
By the sea
Taken in tranquility
Taken, taken so easily
To pass into glass reality
Transform, to transfer, to energy

Concept: The camera is an eye to the past



Also recorded by Yes which included members of The Buggles. Both versions were also released as singles: "Into the Lens (I Am a Camera)" by Yes in 1980 and "I Am a Camera" in October 1981 by The Buggles (on Carrere Records).

A dead bird, a paper airplane in flight, a ledger keeping track of your deeds - good and/or bad. Concepts life, death, accountability, fragility, heaven and hell...

Concept: Writer's block, frustration, difficulty

After further contemplation of this image I suppose the 'concept' (philosophically speaking) was my intent to capture the wondrous miracle of this tiny creature.

I suppose that my fondness for photographing songbirds is driven by my subconscious desire to become as near to them as possible insomuch as I might somehow share, vicariously, the magic of their ability to fly.

Since a child growing up on the coast I have been fascinated with gulls. Their graceful--- yet often vigorous acrobatics---always left me in awe of their ability. I can watch them for hours.

At the same time, since becoming enamored with these smaller birds, I have attempted to produce photographs that capture the beauty and grace of birds like this tiny, Carolina Chickadee. In hopes that I do justice to their often overlooked majesty. When one considers these little critters---more often than not---are zipping around with speed and agility that is overlooked by many.

I may only hope that I succeeded.

I often have a concept in my images, even though they are mostly still life images and mostly of flowers:

Here, this image that I call "Mourning Tulips" is my way of expressing my sadness when my brother passed. I was so sad.

Here another, very recent:

With all that is going on lately, I felt this showed 2 souls yearning to be together more than ever:

Comfort:
This is part of my Human Nature series where I've created images where without any humans in the actual photo, I'm expressing some human characteristic. Here you see two globe thistles that represent a parent and a child being comforted.

And one more, I'm sorry if I put so many, but this is just a tiny look at my work:

Dance of the Fairies: In my mind, fairies are magical and dance in the light. These tulips make me think of fairies or ballerinas moving gracefully in their beautiful dance. I hope you enjoy it!

I've been a photographer for two and a half years. This image may be the first time I had something where the colors and tones were more important to the image than the subject. Also, it's an instance where your sunset is not the superstar, but instead provides a beautifully toned background, which is something I've been doing more of lately.

Social exclusion in group dynamics.

A duality of equal forces. The tension between two polar opposites, locked in an eternal struggle. Two diametrically different, yet somehow almost identical characters / opinions / personalities are naturally antagonistic, and are pulled apart by the same affectionate, magnetic forces that hold them together.

Edward Fielding "Woven words" is absolutely brilliant!

This image was taken in Iceland. This is not a conceptual image, but one that is technically very difficult to do. I had to stand in the pounding surf at 5:00am, dodge ice flows as large as refrigerators, steady myself against the surf and the waves trying to wash me and my tripod out to sea. And did I mention the bitter cold wind with the temperature just above zero.

So, I am trying to capture 1,000 year old glacial ice, the morning sunrise and a sense of peaceful calm in this image. Here is the result.