Silent or Silenced?

Silent or Silenced?

Here are four of the thirty images I had printed yesterday.  All will end up in a collage at some point.  Think they work well as a set... and all on their own.  It's all in the eyes as they have no mouths to speak.

These were fun to create.  A combination of one cut and folded baby's head (yes... a theme of mine) combined with fish eyes, fish parts (check out the teeth on the side of the head of this last one) then mirrored.  The background is a close up of an old pushcart found in Madrid which creates both the neck and a semi neutral landscape-like background.


I created and scanned 21 separate collages over two days in december.  From there I have edited alternate versions of these 21 for a grand total of 600 separate images.  That's the problem (or benefit) of creating something you like and that's visually exciting... the desire (or compulsion) to see just how far that image can be stretched/distorted/focused/altered until it loses whatever the original.. AHA.. impulse.  That made it exciting and worthwhile to manipulate in the first place. 


In many cases the base image often ends up being less exciting (or visually charged/ potent) than the iterations it spawned.  Regardless, after a month or two away from the actual editing process it's daunting to even look at the myriad fish babies I've created...and to select which to print.  In this case I focused on the mirrored faces and the tension embedded in the eyes... combined with a lack of mouth to further express what the eyes say.  It seems to ramp up the tension of their basic strangeness even further.
ENJOY