- Jenny Saville
- John Coplans
- Joel Peter Witkins
Jenny Saville:
Jenny Saville took pictures of her body up against glass, making it look dis formed and unnatural. She produced the series of work to be different; “[it was] undeniably grotesque yet they still had a feeling of beauty”. Her idea of “beauty” in this very taboo subject also showed a very close artist/model relationship, as she was both model and artist. It’s amazing just how much lying on a massive sheet of glass and pushing parts of the body changes the look completely. She would have an assistant underneath the glass to press the shutter, but the whole idea and concept of the work was hers.
John Coplans:
Coplans took images of different parts his own body in very close up detail, quite similarly to Jenny Saville, minus the glass and his were all black and white, adding the ‘old’ feeling to the images. It all shows a feeling of normality; people think beauty is only young, thin , perfect-looking women. John Coplans does the exact opposite: he shows reality of the body and how it changes as it gets older. He was inspired by the fact that people didn’t want to see old people naked; they didn’t want to see old, wrinkly, men. His work is about body imaged and just how it is really looked upon. He shows the details of beauty in older people – he shows the aging process by showing wrinkles to make texture in his photos. Coplans portrays himself as a younger person, doing poses that show muscles, he turns his body into a sculpture. He also shows how he is dealing with humanity, he didn’t want to appear fat and was very vain. His work shows physicality and proves that he isn’t perfect because no such thing exists. Coplans photographs things that he doesn’t really know and manipulates how we look. In one of his photos, he poses in a ostrich-like position which shows that he may be burying his head in the sand, quoting “I’m more alive then I’ve probably been all my life while I’m making these photographs.”
Joel Peter Witkins:
Witkins took photos of people that were quite ‘different’. People with physical disabilities, transgenders, circus freaks etc. He shot in black and white and made his images show ‘darkness’. Unlike the last 2 artists, he didn’t photograph himself but other people to show the human body in different ways.
My favourite artist out of these 3 has got to be John Coplans. I don’t know why but the work of Saville and Witkins just didn’t appeal to me at all and seemed very strange. If I was to rate them, my top favourite would be John Coplans, followed by Jenny Saville, and Joel Peter Witkins would not be on the list at all.
louise huber 