JULIE COCKBURN

Images from the 're-title' website.

These are the works of London based artist, Julie Cockburn. The left piece is called 'Enigma'while the one on the right is called 'The Sage'. According to 're-title' website, these were made for exhibition purposes for the 'Conversations' exhibition in London. Her use of manipulation on these photos has inspired me to analyse and experiment in her style for my personal project.

As mentioned before, Cockburn has manipulated these photos to her liking, producing this end result. Judging from their attire, the subjects look like students who have just graduated, as their cloaks are similar to the one that graduation students wear. Her exact method is unknown, but after examining the work, she may have cut out the face, and using the same using a copy of the same picture, cut it into strips, and placed the original cut out photo against the strips, producing these results. As you can see, these photos are in black and white, suggesting that they were probably taken with an old camera some years back. This can create a nostalgic effect, and can be quite dramatic as well. The shape of the strips take on an oval size, and they seem to come in pairs. The scale of her work is also unknown, but it may have been quite large, possibly A4 size or larger. If the piece was small, it may have caused more confusion from the viewer, as the message wouldn't have been conveyed as effectively.

One of the titles of the work is ' Enigma', which is further emphasised by the grave manipulation of the photo, as we, the viewers do not know the emotions or body language of the subject. She may have been a graduate, who was very nervous on receiving her graduation certificates, or very happy to have made through the academic year. The same could be said for the subject on the right. But judging from his eyes, he may be feeling some negativity, maybe he thought he didn't deserve to graduate, or he didn't get the qualifications he wanted. Although these two pieces are enigmatic, they do allow the viewer to conjure up their own stories.

I chose to look at these pieces of work for its manipulation technique-the method is just as enigmatic as the subjects, but it allowed me to try out a possible technique that may have been used for her own work. I thought that it would be a good method to try out because it could convey the complexity of the human emotions, particularly loneliness, my main focus. What I do like about it, is the simplicity of the technique, and how it was able to be effective pieces of work.