"Find Faces In The Landscape and Create a Habitat for Them".

Here I have chosen to create a habitat for the faces in the landscape that have been wondered over and talked over for many year. Children's fantasies of the idea that there are faces in the landscape all around us.

Brief: Using and medium or materials you wish record images of faces in the landscape, once you have done this, and please explore the abstract and curious, create a habitat for them to reside within, you may consider   any form, size, medium or shape, surprise us, just don't be obvious.

At first I took the brief very literally by thinking of the literal faces hidden in the landscape by coincidence or by artists. I researched into The Green Man as it was my first thought as it is such an old motif studied for years and recreated in many ways.

 

Faces In The Landscape

Hidden faces
People often see hidden faces in things. Depending on the circumstances, this is referred to as pareidolia, the perception or recognition of a specific pattern or form in something essentially different. It is thus also a kind of optical illusion. When an artist notices that two different things have a similar appearance, and draws or paints a picture making this similarity evident he makes images with double meanings. Many of these images are hidden faces or hidden skulls.

These illusionistic pictures present the viewer with a mental choice of two interpretations: head or landscape, head or objects, head or architecture, etc. Both of them are valid, but the viewer sees only one of them and very often he cannot see both interpretations simultaneously.

I then looked further into the work of hidden faces in the landscape created by artists. I decided to look into Oleg Shuplyak's optical illusion paintings his work really interested me because it created his own faces in typical landscape settings.

I then remembered the faces I wanted in the landscape as a child. Fairies. From books I learnt that my imagination could run wild with what could be lurking in the landscape. Here I have researched into Cicely Mary Barker as she was the artist of my first fairy book that inspired my childhood imagination. She painted beautiful fairies for each flow.

I then looked into the habitat part of the brief and researched into Joseph Cornell as he creates habitats out of his memories. Miniature gardens for this little parts of his past he can't throw out. I have chosen to create a habitat for the faces in the landscape that have been wondered over and talked over for many year. Children's fantasies of the idea that there are faces in the landscape all around us.

Then I decided to take photographs of modern faces in the landscape. Normal people, my friends and family. Most commonly seen in the landscape. I will make my habitat based on the idea of miniature people and for them to live in. Because I have no pictures of these such miniature people I will use modern faces from my landscape such as these I have presented. I then decided to use black and white for my fairies because I thought it portrayed both the alter ego of the pure innocent fary's compared to my smoking drinking 'little people'. Also to show how easy it was in the day of black and white photographs to fake fairies using black and white print outs.