Kristin Buck – Mortality

After the exhibition of these images, I sent an email to everyone at Treasure House asking for feedback. Here are the responses:

This final photo collection is excellent, Kristin, and shows what you have learnt during the course. The light on the large rose is amazing and the darkening of the flower petals is brilliant. This is reminiscent of a wedding bouquet but the bones and dead flowers tell a very different story. You have also cleared up problems with focus. Great work.

Melanie, Photography Teacher

I like the textual juxtaposition between the velvety fecund rose petals with the starkness and rigidity of the bones: life maybe lush, but death is non- negotiable.

Fiona, SEN teacher

I really like your work Kristin! It fits the brief of decay, morbidity and also the gallows humour. For example, the skeleton in the heart shaped box : you would expect some chocolates or a box full of souvenirs, something nice/happy. Instead you put something dead (perhaps as a symbol of love that is no more?) and the disposition with all pieces very neatly separated, plus the evident fragility also tell us that’s there’s no putting it back together. It feels like some kind of revenge, like the person with the broken heart is making a point. My favourite is the one with only 2 legs on a black background, far apart. It’s aesthetically very pleasing. And the quality of your photos is very good too. Well done!

Celine, School Administrator

The photos are brilliant! You certainly have fulfilled the brief! I
particularly like the limbs and skull shot set in the heart shaped tin
where you have laid them out. The contrast in colour is stark and the
fact the tin is off centre I find interesting. The effect that has
been created by the flash I presume? adds another dimension to the
photograph. A big well done!

Barney, DT teacher

I thought this was a fascinating exhibition with clear but subtle themes of mortality. I found the use of black as a background very effective, foregrounding brightly highlighted objects, and was intrigued by the hints of reflections, which seemed symbolically significant. My favourite images were the orange flower with the pointed rock but, most of all, the image of two distantly separated legs. At first glance, the two legs looked almost like cyphers or symbols, not legs at all. I thought they were frogs legs and it felt darkly humorous that they are supposed to hop and are now lifeless and useless. Most of all, I like how they were arranged, which made them look like brackets in a sentence and made me think of a beginning and end, birth and death.    

Oliver, Art Therapist

Kristin, all of these photos are stunning, striking and impactful. I really love the first image. The way the roses represent the possibility of life in different forms of colour bright red and black amongst the bones which connect to mortality is an interesting concept. Amazing work Kristin.

Selena, Pastoral supervisor

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