Defended to death, Peter Kennard, 1983
About The Artist
Peter Kennard is a photomontage artists who turned from painting to photomontages to better address his political views.
Artist’s Website
http://www.peterkennard.com/
My Thoughts On His Work
Defended to death speaks volumes to the world by conveying a very conspicuous message; the space race between the USSR and the United States was harming the environment.
The most compelling feature of this piece is it’s simplicity; the message is very direct, very little editing was required yet the power behind the message was not compromised.
Substituting the eyes in the image for the flags of the USSR and the United States was symbolic as it represented the myopia behind the space race; the public was generally never in support of lunar exploration until 1969. The gas mask surrounding earth suggesting that humanity as a whole were suffering from the negative environmental consequences of the space race was a touch of genius to me.
Human Flowers, Cecelia Webber
About The Artist
Cecelia Webber is an artist based in Montreal, Quebec.
Artist’s Website
http://www.ceceliawebber.com/
My Thoughts On Her Work
I particularly liked this piece from Webber’s natural human series as I felt that the way she orchestrated this piece truly brought out the essence of fragility and beauty in human life.
By substituting every element of a rose with a human in a different pose, Webber was able to give an otherwise ordinary object a very unique touch.
Her placement of each person involved in the piece was critical to the message that it tries to bring across as well. At the very center lies a woman who is in fetal position; the position in which a fetus develops. The center of a flower is also where a flower begins to bloom. All the other people involved in this piece are put in very uncomfortable positions, and this is a metaphor for the amount of effort that goes into caring for our offspring.
