Sara Canaverde

The Notion of Home

A series of images based on the subjective reading of the word ‘home’.

1 – Hometown Glory

2 – Front Door

3 – Mother’s Chest

4 – Family is Home

5 – Back to Childhood

6 – Two Mothers = Two Homes

7 – Grandma’s Hand

One Self Portrait

Playing with mirrors, always has been a way for exploring our self-identity. With or without a camera that is a form of diagnose. Our reflecting. Besides the idea of expressing our self-identity through a photograph of one’s reflection in the mirror, there is also this intrigue notion of isolate spaces. Must of our Self Portraits happens in a bathroom or a private space, like our rooms. So, there is this idea of a space of solitude to explore one’s self.

One of the photographers that played with this concept was Vivian Maier.

“In their rigor, dark wit, and visual intensity, Maier’s self-portraits are the most intriguing part of her work.” – Terry Castle 

In Maier’s there is the motif of a mirror. Not only that, but the capturing of the self, leaves us wondering even more. A sense of loneliness, invisibility. Being there without being truly present. A mere display of a reflection. That doesn’t seem to reveal. A sense of staying impenetrable.

Self Portrait

 

The Familiar

The idea of photographing someone that is completely comfortable with the photographer gives a change to explore different ways of creating portraits. In this attempt of capturing someone that we truly know, a certain energy is felt and makes the shooting a very relaxing experience. The feel of authenticity and truth is present. The complicity between subject and photographer is close-fitting. It works within portraiture. You are allowed to infiltrate someone’s soul. To represent this idea of closeness and relaxation, the concept of doing a portrait in the water emerged. It was like being in the womb, photographing a close family member. A cocoon.

Two different photographs from different artists inspired this notion of tranquillity by being in the water.

Robert Mapplethorpe – Javier (1985)

 

Sally Mann – At Warm Springs (1991)

Portrait of Family Member

 The Stranger

When working with the unfamiliar, was still important to maintain the felling of genuineness. Upon that thought it occurred that it would be good to photograph a child. It’s possible to preserve more of the comfort and the result could probably be less stiff. When photographing a child, you feel the honesty and frankness of the subject. They will not hide and they will be true. To immerse completely into the lives of others, a child will most likely give you their permission.

While looking through Vivian Maier’s body of work we can see some amazing portraits of children, maybe being a nanny helped that task to be materialized.

Even though she is mostly recognised for her incredible street photography, she has a wide collection of portraits. We can tell that the subject was aware of being photographed, the only thing that we are not sure is if a dialogue between them was involved. Still used them as an inspiration for the brief.

Portrait of a Stranger

“What do artists have in their pockets?”

This brief aims for the usage of found or borrowed objects. These objects need to be given a new lease of life and context. A meaning that surpasses the one in which they were found. Taken this requirement, the concept in which I duelled into relates with iconic objects in the world of the arts. Simple objects that are key elements of a certain painter. Inspired by a few painters I came upon this idea of having the concept of what some of them may have in their pockets. So, after that, I borrowed must of the objects and then transformed a scenario. Which ‘set’ goes after the imaginary of that specific painter, making the found objects come together as this iconic world.

 

Andy’s Pocket

Andy Warhol was the first artist that came to my mind, that may be because of his use of simple materialistic objects from popular culture. Andy is known for using a variety of images from the world of commerce and mass media. We live in this cluttered world where most of the found objects on the ground have perhaps 95% of the times a brand in it.

       

“I knew Andy very well. The reason he painted soup cans is that he liked soup.” In the world of Still Life is amusing when the artist merely paints the things close to their heart. Enjoying eating Campbell’s soup, having a taste for Coca-Cola. Is fair when the objects on someone’s work reflect their environment. Something that belongs of the mundane, commercial world can became the subject of a work of art. Being a consumer of such products, Andy found inspiration seeing the empty cans and bottle accumulate on his desk.

Beside the Campbell Soup, the iconic print of a banana featured on the cover of the debut album of the band, titled The Velvet Underground & Nico turns to be one an absolute identifier for Andy Warhol ‘collection of subjects’. Warhol’s Banana became one of the most recognizable pieces of pop artwork.

So, those were the two subjects that reflected Andy’s universe the most and also were objects that I could easily borrow.

This is the final photograph:

Van Gogh’s Pocket

Thinking what might be on Van Gogh’s pockets, what comes to mind is straight away “nothing but sunflowers”. The sunflowers are the subject of two series of still life paintings by Vincent van Gogh.

‘Vase with Twelve Sunflowers’ and ‘Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers’ are considered a defying point in Gogh’s painting style. Van Gogh ‘discovers’ the sense of color and light. Twelve Sunflowers in a Vase can be considered the culmination of all this effect in his work. The sunflowers progress in all stages of life. This work was considered innovative for their use of the yellow spectrum, partly because newly invented pigments made new colours possible.

This painting has become somewhat the symbol of Van Gogh’s work, being the painting that is most often reproduced on cards, posters and mugs. It was also the picture that Van Gogh was most proud of.

 

For the scenario: The background revolves around a certain theme that relates to the way Van Gogh painted the sky and the ‘contextual’ of his paintings. This helps bring the sunflowers more to life and makes the connection between the object and the painter’s identity quite obvious.

   

This is the final photograph:

Magritte’s Pocket

Surrealist painters also have their set of realist objects even if they take a creative twist. A green apple. An apple from the dreams or perhaps the nightmares of the Belgian Surrealist painter René Magritte. Apples appeared in many of Magritte’s works. The image of the apple is one of the most frequently recurring: apples wearing carnival masks or a single very large apple floating above the head of a man.

The Bowler hat is also a recurring feature, this distinctive chapeau can be found in many of Magritte’s paitings. Like for example ‘The Son of Man’.

A man in an overcoat and a bowler hat standing in front of a low wall, beyond which is the sea and a cloudy sky. The man’s face is largely obscured by a hovering green apple.

About the painting, Magritte said:”At least it hides the face partly. Well, so you have the apparent face, the apple, hiding the visible but hidden, the face of the person. It’s something that happens constantly. Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see. There is an interest in that which is hidden and which the visible does not show us. This interest can take the form of a quite intense feeling, a sort of conflict, one might say, between the visible that is hidden and the visible that is present.”

To represent that, in the final photograph, the masked apple hides slightly behind the bowler hat.

For the background, just like Van Gogh, the way to represent Magritte’s universe comes upon the way he portraits the sky. Magritte’s scenario is often touch by these beautiful, smooth clouds over a clear blue sky.

 

This is the final photograph:

Final Triptych:

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