Mike Osborne

I found the work of Mike Osborne the other day via the OK! Fresh blog. He has done extensive work in China and Taiwan, capturing these cultures in the midst of great social and historical transformation. As Obsborne notes:

“Shooting in China and Taiwan, I found myself focusing on aspects of the public sphere that, perhaps somewhat paradoxically, fascinated me as a cultural outsider without necessarily being quintessentially ‘Chinese’ or ‘Taiwanese’ either. My pictures convey little sense of China’s 5,000 years of cultural history or Taiwan’s colonial past. I just couldn’t get over Beijing’s big broad streets, the over-sized ads, the sprawling construction, and the new buildings. One associates this breed of spectacle less with Communist rule than with capitalist economies. I suspect the things my pictures fixate on are every bit as foreign-seeming to many Chinese as they were for me.”











From Top To Bottom:

Beijing 2007

Beijing 2007

On Air: Taiwan, Taipei 2007

Pearl Tower, Shanghai 2007

Beijing 2007

All Images © Mike Osborne

Dave Jordano's Prairieland

Dave Jordano e-mailed me today with a selection of images from his series Prairieland. He thoughtfully chose a cohesive subsection of photographs from this body of work that "deal with the idea of how people express themselves through the environment of their own backyards."

I've always been fascinated by how people seek out their individuality through the decorum they surround themselves with. This kind of decorative ornamentation manifests itself out of a need for recognition and social validation. Jordano captures his proud subjects amongst their ephemera with an impartial eye. Many of the people become marginalized within the chaos of their creations, ultimately taking on the qualities of their inanimate lawn decorations.

Prairieland is an extensive project which is well worth exploring in more detail. I would also recommend Jordano's series Articles Of Faith.











All photographs from the series Prairieland

All Images © Dave Jordano

Plum Collective

Kelly Burgess e-mailed me yesterday announcing that she recently started a Boston based photography collective entitled Plum Collective. As the mission statement on the website declares:

"Plum is a collective of talented emerging photographers located in the Greater Boston Area. It functions as an organization for furthering the professional advancement of local artists and enriching the cultural landscape of Boston. Our hopes are that Plum will serve as a networking point for emerging photographers (of all ages) and also prove to be a resource for both local and national galleries.

Plum's goal is to not only bring artists together in collective form on the internet, but also with scheduled exhibitions and publications. There is a very small amount of photography being shown in the area, and we want to change that. With the recent news of many galleries in Boston closing their doors, Plum is looking to offer photographers a way to communicate with other artists in the area and exhibit their work."

They are currently looking for submissions for membership. So if you're a Boston-based photographer whose looking to get collaborative, you should pay them a visit!

Elspeth Diederix

I found the work of Kenya born, Amsterdam based photographer Elspeth Diederix today. This description, found on the Solar Photography site, accurately illuminates her imagery:

"In her work, Elspeth strips everyday objects of their logical form or function and introduces them into a new and surreal world. She brings every variety of material and human character into view in such a way that causes them to lose their original meaning and take on a new one. The illusory image becomes stronger because the objects depicted seem to be suspended in an introverted dream world."











From Top To Bottom:

Z.T. (Mams)

Maquette

Jasmin Chair

Lilac

Black Bowl

All Images © Elspeth Diederix

Aino Kannisto

Finish photographer Aino Kannisto's cinematically influenced photographs distill life's intermediate moments with an eerie tension. In her statement, Kannisto explains:

"I make constructed pictures. I build fictional scenes which I record with the camera. I act out the parts of the individuals in my pictures. However, my pictures are not self-portraits in the traditional sense. The person in the picture is a fictional narrator in the same way as there are narrators in literature. My pictures are fantasies, I represent an atmosphere or a mood through fictional persons. Fantasy is a means to speak about emotions.

Making art is for me a reaction to being in the world. I am engaged with my artistic work as I am always a perceiving and reacting human being. I see pictures in my mind, the things I have dealt with come into my dreams and still moments. I cannot stop working as I cannot stop thinking or existing in the world."











All Images © Aino Kannisto

Photographic Typologies: Louis Porter

Louis Porter's series Motel Carpets is wonderfully offbeat twist on the typical rigidity of the typology. Each stain, tear, cigarette butt and embedded piece of gum adorning the carpets lends each patterned surface a unique, albeit weathered, charisma.











All photographs from the series Motel Carpets

All Images © Louis Porter

From Here To There

Katie Shapiro e-mailed me today after happening upon The Exposure Project website. As it turns out, she is a member of the Los Angeles based art collective From Here To There. Their site is well worth checking out when you get a minute. It's nice to find other artists that are working in a similarly collaborative manner. As their mission statement asserts:

"From Here to There is a collective of artists currently living and working in Los Angeles. Their practices range from photography to collage and include video, sound, and installation. What brings them together is their desire to combine their personal perspectives and various interests to create a greater dialogue through the art that they make. They meet on a bi-weekly basis to discuss ideas both old and new, to hone their practices, and fuel each other through discussions, critiques, and conversations."

On The Floor

Image © Katie Shapiro