Parousia, exist alongside

Upcoming artist.

[davidsharplesart]

I need to post more of my photos on here. Sorry Tumblr.

So this was my first foray into slide film. I heard it was difficult to shoot and I expected it to be a lot worse than this. But they came out good and damn its beautiful holding up a positive to the light bulb. I wanna see my slides of the grand canyon. Imagine that.

Fuji Velvia 100 on a Mamiya 7ii (6x7) and my Flexaret VI (6x6).

[davidsharplesart]

Went out shooting film with Simeon on Saturday, and developed the same day. And then scanned the day after. A boss of a workflow huh. We went around Organ, outside Las Cruces, which had some sick ruined cafes and gas stations.

I shot with a faulty Canon Eos with a new Sigma 24-70mm f2.8 which would have been great it the shutter wasn't out of sync :(. But I shot with a lovely Nikon FM with a motor drive and a 28mm f3.5 which created these images. They came out pretty great. Tmax 100 - First try with it. I don't really like it, and its a pain in the arse to develop for some reason, so TriX is my bae forever.

[davidsharplesart]

This is my most recent photography project: They Live Among Us.

Since the Roswell incident in 1947 and the subsequent events that were found to be attempted rescue missions, the earth was left with a group of alien beings that would remain here with no hope of return to their home planet. Despite initial horror and fascination on the part of the humans, the aliens were soon left alone, to fend for themselves in the American deserts. However, the aliens, with their higher virility, soon multiplied into a large consortium. The alien groups soon required large amounts of food and power. After the initial intolerance and sanctions  towards the alien tribes, pro-alien rights groups promoted the merging of the aliens and humans into a diverse society. It was soon found that the humanoid aliens had compatible DNA with humans, and a new hybrid race was formed; alien-human hybrids that displayed attributes of both parents. This project documents a day in the life of an alien-human hybrid named Bee, who also studies at New Mexico State. I love that aliens have become a part of our society now, but I was interested in showing how they have integrated into our culture. But I also want to address the prejudice that remains with some close-minded human groups.

Ilford Delta 400 120mm shot on a Meopta Flexaret VI, developed in Kodak Xtol, scanned on an Epson Perfection 4990

[davidsharplesart]

It's not everyday that your photography project requires you to go to IHOP with aliens 👽 (at IHOP)

[davidsharplesart]

Abstraction through repetition #artlyf (at Dan W. Williams Hall)

[davidsharplesart]

Finished my first big ass print of some alien photos that I discovered 👽#thetruthisoutthere (at Dan W. Williams Hall)

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Teesside is the new Hollywood. According to me. #artlyf (at Dan W. Williams Hall)

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Not much happens over summer, but now I'm in the States to study for a year and term starts well early over here. I painted this at the Austin graffiti wall, I always enjoy combining recognisable symbols to 'have a go' at consumerism or something. Here's Ronald 'Joker' McDonald.

[davidsharplesart]

These are screen prints that I never properly finished. I love the effect of screen print, but hate the process. Unfortunately painting took over, so I never finished the prints. But here are some at a later point in the process, I dulled down the colours with white because they were too bright in the second one. I think that I started out liking the image I was using, but I kinda lost the passion for it, which is why I didn't finish it.

[davidsharplesart]

The process of this painting started a lot earlier on which is documented further back in the blog. But this is a house in West, Texas that I visited in Summer 2013. 100's of houses were damaged by a fertiliser explosion that killed 13 people. This was one of the houses that was damaged enough that it wasn't safe to live in anymore. As we drove through the town there would be many of these houses with crosses on them, meaning that they were waiting demolition. Unfortunately, demolition costs were so much that insurance would cover it, but not building new houses. Hundreds of people have been displaced, because they cannot afford the costs of demolishing and rebuilding their homes. The spray paint x was what I wanted to finish the painting, and amplify the damage that has affected the whole town.

[davidsharplesart]

Where A Bigger Splash is up to at the moment. Splash needs more work, and the foreground will be added in around it. I really like it at the moment though, there as some nice effects and compositional strengths.

[davidsharplesart]

I watched an art documentary about jake and dinos chapman who sometimes paint over original images to draw attention to certain parts. I have taken some black and white photos of my own and from the Internet and painted in the natural parts of it - skies and trees. This makes them look removed from the space, juxtaposing the synthetic and the natural.

[davidsharplesart]

'Brutalist McDonalds' I rabbit skin glued a maccys wrapper onto a board to reappropriate the designs on there. I drew on a brutalist architectural form on top, implying that McDonalds has a brutalist 'ugly' nature to it and there are loads of them everywhere. It's like the scourge of the 80's in architecture is replaced by a far more dangerous fast food chain with all of its unhealthiness

[davidsharplesart]

These are photos of the progress on A Bigger Splash (after David Hockney). I wanted to reference to his paintings by adding a raw canvas border, idyllic blue skies, buildings and a splash. But I wanted my scene to be more dystopic and include ruined aspects of places I had visited. Hockney's painting was based on his experiences of California, it's sun, adobe houses and easy Hollywood life style. I like to see this scene as what happens when there is too much indulgence; the rich people's money eventually fades. This scene I have painted is devoid of people but implies a prescence in the splash, like Hockney's, but the building are ruined and graffitied. I originally planned to paint in a style more reminiscent of Hockney, but I ended up painting areas in the distance with looser greys and blue watered down with white spirit and the foreground with complex graffiti detail and rubble. This implies a hazy ruined nature, and draws the eye to the splash. It's currently unfinished, but I hope to return to finish it at some point.

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For my reappropriation/triute to David Hockney’s A Bigger Splash, I needed to make my own splash. So I jumped into the canal and had people photographing me to get the best results. 

I then went on to super impose the splash into my painting. I put a dubstep track on the video because its funny haha

[davidsharplesart]

All my work up ready for assessment!

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Developments on paintings. The orange one is like a development of the drippy stuff in the red one. I also bought the Orange, so I wanted to paint something with it.