The first artist I found within this journey was the artist Alexey Kondakov. Ukraine based, up and coming artist Kondakov depicts the modern day culture of his home town with photoshopped historical figures perfectly placed within them. Born and raised within Donetsk, Ukraine, Alexey Kondakov grew up within a small family. Kondakov's mother worked as a full time engineer whilst his father worked as a miner. As I have been searching through the internet, looking for more information on Kondakov, I have found little to nothing. Whilst this is frustrating, I believe the fact I am able to study an up and coming artist allows me to watch and develop with the artist. However this does leave me with the problem of having little background information on the artist. Therefore the little I have found, has left me with a small basis on Kondakov's work, however I am still going forward with studying this artist purely due to the fact of his work infatuating and inspiring me. The only person within Kondakov's family who had any connection to art was his grandad, whose hobby was to create various drawings throughout the second world war. Therefore, without any major influences, Kondakov mainly talks about drawing from a young child and enjoying it. Studying graphic design at КНУТД university led Kondakov into exploring with photoshop therefore creating the beautiful series of work which I am studying. In addition to this working as an art director.
The first part of the series is entitled "Art History in Contemporary Life" and is the first series which really brought Kondakov into the art world as a uprising artist. However, after realising new digital photos, Kondakov, change the title to " The Daily Life of Gods". Inspired by the painting of Cesar van Everdingen, Kondakov focuses on the "quality time" spent together by the people within these paintings which he links back to the backgrounds of Kiev. Being classed as "new" within the art world Kondakov has had no key exhibitions within his work yet, however to not call this series of photos a key point within his working career so far would be a true tragedy.
Year: 2015
Medium: Digital collage
The piece I am currently studying is from the collection, as perviously mentioned before, "The Daily Life of Gods". It depicts the angelic scene from the painting "Songs of Angels" by the artist William Bouguereau. The piece shows a group of three angels singing to a woman and child, often classed as Jesus and Mary in many religious peoples views. However, their background environment is in complete contrast to their delicate white clothed, clothing. The background is of subway carriages, showing a grimy scene with dirtied seats and cold, steel poles to grip on to. The way the two separate pieces have been photoshopped together leave you with a the women holding the baby, wearing blue and white, contrasting from the angels, sitting down on the discoloured red seats whilst the angels gently lean down besides her to holding various instruments in which they look as if they are playing. The cloth from all of the characters clothing within the painting are almost placed upon the run down floor of the very public transport. It is important to note, no one else is on the carriage, it is left completely empty, or a person has been photoshopped over to create a basis for the painting to lye upon. The formal elements of this piece contain a digitally photoshopped painting into a photograph. The line with this piece would mainly focus on the outline of the painting. This is what I first focused on when seeing the piece, the outline is both a mixture of blunt and gentle. The blunt outline is down alongside the angels wing, the curves of the wing are sharp, and highly contrast with the background of darkness. Whereas the cloth from both all characters clothing is gently cascading onto the floor, therefore leaving a softness between the painting and photo. The tone and colours of this piece are something which really interest me, the dark brown colours within the background of the piece somehow fit with the faded off white colours from the angels clothing. I believe that because the painting was never very bright, or has substantially faded, it has left the backgrounds meshing together in a way. However, I feel the blue dress wore by the woman within the painting leaves the real point of reality within this photo. When first seeing the piece at first glance I mainly focused on the angles wings which led me to think about whether is was photoshopped, however I remained thinking purely about the tones of the piece blended slightly within the background therefore believe it was painted as a whole piece. Seeing the blue contrast with the faded grey and yellow floor is what changed my mind into believe this piece had been photoshopped. However, it was such a small detail which changed my mind within this piece, and the obvious fact of the picture as a whole, that leaves the tones and colours as a mixture of whites, greys, oranges, blues and browns.
This piece has a varied amount of texture to it. Whilst it would not be classed the same as the texture coming from a piece usually showing texture, such a Burri, I believe the underling tones of the photo being overlaid into the scene leaves you with the slight amount of texture around the edges of the piece, for example, the bases of the clothing, the wings of one of the angels, and the heads of the various characters. The form of this piece is 2-D, it is a flat photo print. Sadly Kondakov has not had any exhibitions for me to go and see his work first hand. In addition to this, his pieces are digital prints therefore are not presented in any physical form. I completely understand the importance of seeing artist work first hand, it had completely changed my perspective of artists work before, and I am sure it will continue to do so with other artists I am yet to discover. However, there is no way of me seeing these pieces in real life, therefore I have had to study them through the main source I have, the internet. The size of the pieces have not been released anywhere over the internet due to them being digital prints, therefore if I was to say they are the standard 6'4 photo size, it would dramatically affect the photos. Being such a small size would really make people look closer, and potentially change how long they take to figure out if the piece has been photoshopped or painted. This is something I need to take into consideration when starting to create my own pieces. The line of the piece is 2-D and 3-D. The 3-D aspect of the piece would defiantly be the outline of the painting whereas the 2-D aspect lye throughout the whole of the piece. The piece contains little primary colours, most of the colours within the photo would be classed as secondary if used within a painting. However, the posters on the windows of the subway carriage add tiny bursts of colour to the piece, with bright orange, yellow and green. The painting however, contains a mix of white tones and a deep blue colour similar to the colour Old Delft Blue.
The main mark making techniques throughout this piece does not allow me to study them with the way I would normally study a piece such as a painted piece for example. However, this intrigued me, the mark making techniques within this piece are defiantly specific. The way Kondakov has a left a smoothness within his photoshopping means he has created a blend between the background of the photo and painting. Kondakov could have chosen to leave a ruff, edgy background within the piece, yet he did not. The smoothness and natural flow of the clothing from the characters means the piece appears less 3-D. However, the one pin point of the piece which I could see looked slightly rougher with more edge was the wing of the angel. I feel this works really well as it contrasts against the back of the piece. This piece is composed with the characters placed just left of the centre. However, I would not class this as using the rule of thirds, the characters are just off centred enough to make you notice it. I feel the way the photo was taken really affects how the piece has been composed. It looks as if the picture has been taken by Kondakov sitting down and holding the camera at a chests height to allow him to capture the whole one side of the carriage with small amounts of the other side being placed with perspective. I have this opinion mainly because of the seat which has been cut of on the right hand side.
The composition of the piece really changes how you look at it, the painting is a perfect length from the photo which almost gives a small run away affect. By this I mean, the floor leads up to the painting and with the mixture of the florissant light it allows a gentle spotlight to be placed upon the painting. After reading short interview articles upon interview articles about Kondakov I found the main reason behind these selection of pieces were "life". The mixture of the modern day setting and the historical figures placed together create an expression of life and the movement surrounding it. Kondakov did comment of his first series of photos saying they were about spending quality time together. Personally, this piece reflects the beauty of two completely different time periods. In addition to this, the contrast between reality and the illusion of paintings. The two different time periods obviously relates to the time in which the painting was created and time in which the photo was taken. I feel this is relevant to me because of the way the painting strangely seems to fit in within the background. Obviously, I have stated before that some parts do not fit, which does create a beautiful contrast, however the parts which do fit side by side almost allow a time lapse of history. The almost connected pieces of this collage allows the viewer to look at history and modern day within the same piece and I believe that is something extremely admirable. When I make the point of reality and illusion, I believe the painting shows the harsh reality of Kiev, on public transport under the bright lighting with dismal colours. Whereas the painting shows whiter tones adding a certain illusion to the piece. You seemed to be taken in by the purer colours before your eyes make their way back to the surroundings.
I discovered Kondakov on social media, Twitter to be specific. His work was "retweeted" leaving it there for me to discover. The first thing I loved about this piece was the painting, and hoe delicate it was. It then lead me to looking closer at the piece and actually finding a small comedic value within it. It is out of the normal, and interesting, I was infatuated by this exact piece. However, the more of Kondakov's work I found, the more interest was gained. The influence from Kondakov has defiantly led to me wanting to look more in depth at photoshop and look more at contrast images against each other. For example, the contrasting image of youth culture, stereotyping and so forth. To conclude, Kondakov's work has highly influenced me and has allowed me to think in more depth about how I can look at using contrast in high or low levels to change my work.
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