Robert mapplethorpe

Robert Mapplethorpe

 

 

 Robert Mapplethorpe is a photographer who was based and born November 4th 1946 - died march 1989. Although he was born and raised in America  he is an English / Irish raised roman catholic .  his images all of which are black and white , reference a range of different feeling and sub categories.

• religion
• classical imagery
• erotic
• sexual
• flowers 

These categories even though they seem so different Mapplethorpe seems to mange to link these together to produce what I think are some amazing and well composed images. The images that have inspired me to produce work based on the human form are the erotic and sexual pieces. a lot of which are shown in his collection polaroid's Mapplethorpe . These are all images that he produced through out   the late 1960s and 1970s . This was also when he was working for the controversial BDSM underground scene in new York. This images I found shows not only  the erotic and sexual side to  what was seen as very controversial  images and weren't seen in the public eye. but also the way in which the details to everybody's bodies can change the way that you look at there form. This made me want  to look into this further and explore the human form and how photographing this with different composition and lighting can change the way it looks and how it is presented.

The thing that caught my eye most about his self portraits and portraits of others in the collection is the way in which curves and line of the body are bough out boldly by the lighting and are almost lit around the edge showing the detail to the form. this I would like to experiment with in my work firstly with doing full portraits that resemble Mapplethorpe . but then then to use Photoshop and image manipulation to cut out individual section to then create a an abstract piece. This in its self though  still links to Mapplethorpe work with others pieces that caught my eye for example tie rack 1969 mixed media this showing a mixed media piece linking religion and erotica. when experimenting with my work I will use the multi media technique and also the image manipulation tools that I have been experimenting with in Photoshop.