PHILIP-LORCA DICORCIA

The second artist that I have chosen for my photographer research is Philip-Lorca diCorcia. His photographs ‘straddle truth and fiction by combining real people and places—but not necessarily people and places that naturally go together’. Using lighting and actors, he constructs each scene in his photographs intentionally. Though each photograph is staged, he captures images that are seemingly mundane, yet cinematic, of ordinary people in ordinary scenes. One such series of photographs I find quite interesting are the photographs that he took of his brother, Mario.

Mario (1978)


Mario (1981)

I like the intentionality in choosing a body that is not in anyway conventionally attractive. The subject is perhaps even directed to look unglamorous, but I feel that this adds greatly to the rawness of the photograph and draws the viewer in to engage with the image. Some describe his images as eerily calm, and I think such a tone is also created with the lack of a clear context, which leaves his images with a certain ambiguity that allows for the viewer to impose their own narratives onto the images.

His works display the modern isolation and loneliness faced by people living in cities and I think it is amazing how he manages to still capture such an intense sense of rawness even though these photographs are all to some extent constructed by him.

Brian (1988)

Igor (1987)

One thing that I would like to perhaps investigate in my final project is creating this sense of rawness and vulnerability, to construct an image that is able to draw the viewer in. I think the framing and lighting of his images also affords them quite a surreal quality which I am also interested in applying to my own works.