Criticizing Photographs
Multimodal Presentation
Synopsis
Tamara Dean is an Australian photographer and performance artist whose work is displayed in various galleries and museums across the world. Her work centers around the connectedness between humans and the environment, further expanding on this idea by incorporating themes of climate change and environmental destruction in her later work. Her portraits have a surreal, dream-like quality to them due to her unique understanding of light and landscape. These imaginitive and highly interpretive images express her concern for the planet in a beautiful, aesthetically evaluative way. The images I chose to review in my presentation are some of her most acclaimed and expressive works.
Changing Perceptions
Dean's photography has made it clear to me that photographs can be ethically evaluative, interpretive, and beautiful simultaneously. Her work has prompted me to think more conceptually about my own photography while still paying attention to composition, lighting, and color. As an artist and a scientist, her work also reminds me of the intersections between the two realms. Her images represent abstract ideas and feelings that science can make tangible, a reminder that the two subjects can be highly interconnected. The ideas she explores in her work are ideas that I would like to explore as well and the stories she has created with her images inspire me as I develop my own artistic vision.