formal evaluation

Anders Krisar’s photographic work, Flesh Cloud #1 (2003), is a C print under glass mounted on MDE located outside Faulconer Gallery at Grinnell College.  The photograph is a large format work.  Formally, the setting can be described as an old factory building built during the 1800s.  In the piece there is only one horizontal axis that splits the piece into halves, the top half is dominated with red and dark brown brick, while the bottom half, sidewalk, is cobblestone.  However the most intriquet part of the photo is a flesh tone blur, when dividing the photo in to a 3x3 grid the blur is located in the middle square.  The blur seems like a naked human walking over a period of time. Within the cloud there are 5 distinct horizontal axis.  A naked human describes the blur because on how the these axes is distributed.  The top portion of the blur seems like a women with black hair walking back at forth over a period of time.  Under the hair portion of seems like a woman breast due the fact that she seems like she has a tan and most woman do not sun bathe naked.  Below this depicts a woman stomach who has been sunbathing this can be seen by the contrast shade between the breast area and pubic area to the stomach area.  The last portion seems the blur is a leg portion.  The result of the long exposure and the movement of a naked woman produces a cloud like object.

            I believe the artist created this piece to make a statement the hectic life that we live in today’s world.  Before a photo took a few minutes to set and in today’s world we do not have the time to stand still, he makes it seem that we are invisible in a visible world.  The piece is a haunting and powerful portrait of the lives that we live in the modern world.