Development : Edited photographs of limbs and trees

From the first Photo shoot in the woods I took some of the images into Photoshop to try different effects and edit them slightly. Since their is so many different ways for me to go about doing this project I thought photography and digital editing would be a good starting point if the project ends up becoming more digital.

I was trying to manipulate the photographs to alter my limbs into more tree like anthropomorphic shapes and to play with textures.

But since this is still the experimental stage I wanted to try out a lot of different effects and ideas that I could do to the images. These ones in the set have just had brightness and contrast levels altered and some cropping.

Some perspective photos which I felt were quite successful cause of that's how we usually look up at trees and playing with the scale of the arms seems to be really effective as a simple crop.

The more simple photographs seem to be really effective as well on their own just with some simple cropping and contrast. The subtle differences between the bark and the skin seem to explore my relationship concept with trees really well.

I went into using overlays and putting images together and over each other to create quite intricate visuals of the limbs like they were branches. With also a repetitive image with some simple rotation and copy paste to create a type of natural looking pattern. The last image is very surreal as it's a warped image of hand against an image of a tree that had the characteristics of a hand like shape.

These images are a gradual change of the bark/branch appearing on my arm was thinking along the lines of morphing or stop motion animation for this piece. Might make some little sets of my images changing slightly into parts of trees and nature like their growing or changing. This image was skewed, stretched and over lapped with layers.

These were mostly tests but felt they came out pretty good for some experimentation and putting some of my ideas finally down in some visual form. I would like to explore this further with some more photo shoots and possible video footage. Weather has been a bit of a factor in doing these shoots outside but with some luck can try to get some more photos collected and take some more props and a tripod. I'll also plan and storyboard my ideas in my sketchbook for reference and direction.

Tree art and inspiration

Found a lot of interesting and inspiring examples of Tree art and the human form as I've been researching and thought I should include some examples as a type of mood blog for the project. Been looking into so many different ways trees are used visually in sculpture, photography, ritual and as art pieces. It's helping me decide and push the project in the type of directions concerning the human form and the aura trees have.

It's gave me a better understanding of how trees influence us and how we engage with them and also how important they can be. Trees seem to create such a strong presence and have different auras surrounding them and a lot going on for them to thrive and survive. Their constantly growing and competing for sunlight and rain so they can produce food and nutrients as well as buds. These then can start new life cycles and germinate the female and male buds to create new trees and ensure new growths of the same type of trees. They provide shelter from the sun and home to many animals and insects as well producing endless resources for humans. Especially as tools in the art world since we use paper as usually a starting point and resin and latex also come in forms from trees as well.

Feel positive using the trees and natural materials as a theme and very inspiring about and our relationship with them creatively. 

Research artist : Aron Demetz

Biography

Born in 1972 in Vipiteno, Demetz lives and works in Selva di Val Gardena

1986-93 Instituti d’arte di Selva Val Gardena

1997-98 Academy of Fine Arts Nuremberg, under Professor Christian Höpfner

Italian sculptor Aron Demetz (cousin of Gehard Demetz, whose work we featured in Hi-Fructose Vol. 22) creates wood sculptures that appear distressed, burnt and scarred. The process of working with wood is a fundamental part of Demetz’s aesthetic — instead of presenting polished and perfected works, Demetz celebrates the wood’s textures and its transformation through various natural processes. The simplified, abstracted human figures can seem like personifications of the wood itself.

Aron Demetz uses traditional woodcarving techniques to convey his preoccupation with humanity’s relationship to nature. In his work he eschews the classical opposition of human and nature, and allows the two to become an inseparable whole, evoking the primordial experience.

Born in Val Gardena, in northern Italy, where he continues to live and work, Demetz adopted a traditional South Tyrolean technique of woodcarving that dates back to the 17th century. His sculptures – depicting the human figure in classical postures or unusual awkward positions – explore the possibilities and limitations of wood as a material. The resulting works have a strong physical presence, which deeply engage the viewer on a psychological level, conveying both our oneness with nature and our alienation from it.

In the piece ‘Untitled’, conceived for the Italian Pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennale, Demetz introduced the use of natural resin, meticulously collected from wounds on the trees in the Val Gardena forests. With its smell, colour, and texture, it gives his signature wood sculptures even more corporeal presence and adds a lyrical dimension to his powerful work.

Examples of his work:

The charred remains of the artist's works evoke a new range of sentiments that delve deeper into the vulnerabilities of both the wooden materials they are composed of and the human figures they represent. Demetz's sculptures present mankind and nature as one, reflecting the fragility of both. The burned structures peel back the facade of the figurative forms and expose their susceptibility to hindering elements, both in the literal and metaphoric sense. The wood-turned-charcoal figures present an interpretive look at the outcome of physical and emotional onslaught.

Expanding on his interest in the human figure, Demetz works with wood to evince conflicting notions of temporality and the quest for permanence. By reviving the religious tradition of wood carving that has flourished in the Northern Italian town of Val Gardena since the 17th century, Demetz brings a rich spirituality to his sculptures. Yet he simultaneously imbues his work with an oddly fitting contemporary touch by layering silver or aluminium foils or pouring resin over his figures. The resulting effect is startlingly truthful in capturing the complexity of the ties that bind us to the natural world.

Demetz work has really interested me in the human form and it's relationship with nature his sculptures are beautiful but also have a powerful visual. That looking at them we can relate and see our own form that were comfortable with but as a still material that is expressing strong visual emotion. His works relationship between man and nature felt valuable in my research as it’s a relationship I’ll be exploring in this project. His use of different methods of manipulating the wood to express different moods appealed to my experimentation of natural materials I would like to achieve.