Ruud Van Empel
Ruud Van Empel born in 1958, in Breda, The Netherlands graduated in 1981, from his hometown school, the Academy of Fine Arts St. Joost. Empel began his career as a designer but focused mostly on film and photography. Empel takes and collects pictures of models, leaves, flowers, plants, etc putting them in a database. Empel when editing his photographs (mostly in Photoshop) uses these images that he collects to produce superior collage encouraged photos. According to Empel in reference to his work “Coincidence is very important in making collages, I photograph all kinds of things, just following my fascinations, later these photo’s happen to come together in one collage. Sometimes it takes years for a photo to get into my collages, lots of photo’s I take never get in.” (Interview)
Empel describing his work states, "I use one model's forehead, then another one's nose, then I add on light to the nose and the pupils in the eyes. I'm just mixing, mixing, mixing. Even the upper and lower lips are separate montages." He is creating a mosaic of facial features to craft a unique imaginary individual. (Paris)
Empel enhances images making them appear dreamlike and painterly. The characters in Empel’s photographs display as doll like characters. I am interested in Empel’s work, the way Empel edits his models giving the impression that they are doll like and fragile. In my work I want to try and expand on this idea of making myself appear more delicate and doll like by editing and exaggerating certain features.
Rudd van Empel’s work often consists of young children in tropical forest settings. Empel finds leaves and flowers intriguing and captivating because of this he places his models in these tropical like settings. Empel has produced a new kind of collage photography.
Empel’s work negatively scrutinized in the past for how dark the children (African Children) are in his compositions challenges this inquiry. Empel states, "When people think of childhood innocence they automatically think of a white girl with pale skin, which is strange because all children - whether they're black or white - are the same. And in Christianity, the colour black is often used to express something negative. The devil is black; death is black. I wanted to challenge these conventional perceptions and show that a black child can also represent beauty." (Ruud Van Empel)
Ruud Van Empel, Generation #1 2010, Panorama Works
Cibachrome 49 x 130 inches
Ruud Van Empel, World #1 2005
Cibachrome, 41.34 x 59.06 inches
Ruud Van Empel, Untitled #1, 2004
Cibachrome, 33.11 x 46.81 inches
Ruud Van Empel, Brothers & Sisters #3, 2010
Cibachrome 47 x 47 inches
Book: Ruud van Empel Photoworks. January 2009. Published by PhotoWorks. Amsterdam text by Maartje van den Heuvel.
Current Exhibits:
Flatland Gallery, Utrecht, The Netherlands, Solo Exhibition “Wonder” October 30- December, 2010.
Paris Bejing PhotoGallery, Bejing, China, Solo Exhibition December 11, 2010- February 1, 2011.
Samson, Anna. Galerie Rabouan- Moussion Paris Review. http://web.ruudvanempel.nl/publications-press/reviews/245-exhibitions.html
No comments:
Post a Comment