Essay on Edgar Allen Poe

Submitted By rjbmusiclife
Words: 1053
Pages: 5

A few weeks ago I visited the Albright Knox art gallery. There were so many cool and intriguing things there, but one artist grabbed my attention the most. Kelly Richardson uses digital media and photography as her art form. Her message that media, such as television shows and social media sites, can blur our sight of what is real and what is fantasy. Kelly Richardson has really expanded the boundaries of art and has though outside of the box. Kelly Richardson was born in Burlington, Ontario, Canada. There, she studied media and fine arts at the Ontario Collage of Art and Design. She graduated there with an undergraduate degree with honors. Richardson also studied at Nova Scotia College for Art and Design and Newcastle University which helped her earn her masters degree with distinction. She also has a diploma from Sheridan College where she took an Art Fundamentals Intensive Program. She currently lives in North East England and her work is known throughout the Untied States, Asia, and Europe. Some of her art is currently featured at Birch Liberlato in Toronto, Canada, the Albright Knox Gallery in Buffalo, New York, the Towner in Eastbourne, United Kingdom, Edel Assanti in London, United Kingdom, and many other galleries. Her work was not always as advanced as it is today. “Richardson’s videos and still photography, which deal more exclusively in landscape, have evolved over the last ten years from simple single-channel works into elaborate digitally enhanced environments that engulf her viewers in virtual worlds tinged with wonder and anxiety,”(Jager) writes David Jager in an article called “Kelly Richardson: The Radiant Real” Kelly Richardson has mastered the art of giving her viewers a hard time trying to find what is fabricated and what is real life in her work. What amazes her and what is the inspiration for her work is her fascination of how media has effected our views of reality. “With on that [social media], the truth is difficult, if not impossible, to locate, it seems-the line between fantasy and reality becomes further and further obscured,”(Richardson) says Richardson in and interview, “I’ve been combining real and constructed elements, focusing on creating photographs and video installations that reflect that confusion in some way.”(Richardson) Kelly Richardson has pushed the limits and expanded the boundaries on digital media and photography. Other artists have enhanced photos or have added digital media to a piece of art but nothing really to this extent. Richardson has really opened up a door for other artists. One of Kelly Richardson’s pieces that is especially intriguing to me is called Leviathan. It runs for twenty minutes and is footage of Caddo Lake in Texas. There are many trees that I think may be willows. The sound is the wind blowing and it reminds me of a noise you would hear in horror movies as the person looks through a haunted house. The weather is dark and gloomy and a little foggy. The atmosphere isn’t dark as in black, but a brown shade. The water is a dark greenish brown and you can see murky yellow lights move over the water which makes the water look like it is moving. Form is most definitely present everywhere in this piece of art. You can also see texture in the way the lights move across the water. The tree also look like they would feel unreal. They are real trees, but the effects give them a video game like appearance. Color is seen in the lights on the water and the greenish brown tint add to the entire film. Value is there too. The sun in the background creates a shadow giving the tree more depth. Richardson’s art is all about giving people a hard time determining reality from fantasy. I know in this particular piece, she used a computer program to enhance the light moving across the water and tinted it a yellow green. She also replaced the typical animal noises you would hear at a lake and replaced it with an eerie track.