OPENING RECEPTION FOR THE ARTIST
SATURDAY, JULY 12th
8:30 - 10 PMT
THROUGH SEPTEMBER
This new body of work, which Melanie Pullen began in 2004, is an examination of historic battle imagery and the social impact of conflict, combat, the stylization of war, and the viewpoint of victory. It includes light-box portraits of soldiers from different countries and eras, battle scenes, individual and groups of jumping soldiers, and images of biowarfare select agents such as anthrax. This is the first work in which Pullen makes use of the light-box which gives the artworks a floating cinematic effect. For Violent Times, Pullen enlisted the help of set builders, makeup artists, actors, models, stylists, and stunt crews, among others. To create one of the monumental battle scenes she worked for several months with one of the top movie studios to build large sections of the city of Berlin and then populated this shot with a cast of hundreds.
Pullen is known for her previous photographic series High Fashion Crimes Scenes which she worked on for over ten years. These large-scale color photographs were based on vintage crime-scene images that she recreated by restaging selected events. In these photographs, Pullen distracted the viewer from the sinister content of the crimes, by colorizing, glamorizing, and outfitting the “victims” in haute couture. While becoming desensitized to this series’ gruesome source material, she simultaneously encounters graphic war imagery that has a compelling psychological impact, motivating her to explore the history of pictorial documentation with a new eye. Hence, Pullen turns her focus from crime scenes to confront another deeply disturbing face of human nature that ultimately becomes the origin of Violent Times.
Pullen states, “I believe that this kind of imagery, not only evokes a sense of unification, heroism, and confidence, but also contrastingly brings to mind feelings of delusion, loss, fear, and terror. She recalls, “While visiting the Smithsonian in early 2007, I was shown a journal written by a young man killed in combat that included drawings and many personal notes. This type of first person account, written by both American and foreign combatants, is something that has been momentous in developing a strong narrative and sense of character in my new series.”
Pullen has explored the dramatic evolution of the visual depiction of war. Beginning with the fantasy and glamour of historical painting, progressing towards the reality conveyed with the invention of photography, and finally observing the truth and/or accuracy of photojournalism. Pullen says, “In Violent Times, I combine all of these elements by using modern day technology while referencing the aesthetic of portraits and battle imagery made in previous centuries.”
In addition, Pullen researched various ways in which war is glamorized through the fashion of uniforms, stylized portraiture, propaganda imagery, and recruitment films. The extravagant regalia and stiffly posed portraits found in historic war paintings have been of special interest to Pullen. In the process of making portraits of male models wearing historical uniforms, she paid close attention to the evolution of war uniform and implement design including clothing, headdress, and weapons dating back to ancient combat.
Pullen draws further inspiration from old master paintings, as well as historical portraiture, and early photojournalism, such as Jacques-Louis David’s Oath of the Horatii and The Intervention of the Sabine Women, Eugène Delacroix’s most famous painting, Liberty Leading the People, Rembrandt van Rijn’s The Company of Frans Banning Cocq and Willem van Ruytenburch, known as The Night Watch, and Nicolas Poussin’s Tancred and Erminia. She is especially interested in the reality of Ernest Meissonier’s The Barricade, rue de la Mortellerie, and the fantasy of Charles Le Brun’s Alexander in Babylon.
Melanie Pullen was born in New York City in 1975; self-taught and raised in a family of photojournalists, publishers, and artists, she currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California.
ACE GALLERY LOS ANGELES
5514 WILSHIRE BOULEVARD
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90036
T: 323.935.4411 | F: 323.202.1082
WWW.ACEGALLERY.NET
(Rate this article!)
Loading ...
Loading ...
0 responses so far ↓
Subscribe to our RSS Feed and leave a comment to enter the commentator of the week competition and win a $20 Amazon.com gift voucher.
Leave a Comment