Thoughts & Work. 2nd Year BA Drawing.

Sunday, 30 January 2011

Re-visiting John Copland's work

 Self-Portrait (Back with Arms Above)  1984

Photograph on paper
image: 1213 x 935 mm
on paper, print

Presented by the American Fund for the Tate Gallery, courtesy of Marsha Plotnitsky 2000
Self-Portrait (Hands Spread on Knees)  1985

Photograph on paper
image: 968 x 1108 mm
on paper, print

Presented by the American Fund for the Tate Gallery, courtesy of Marsha Plotnitsky 2000 
 Self-Portrait (Torso, Front)  1984

Photograph on paper
image: 1156 x 817 mm
on paper, print

Presented by the American Fund for the Tate Gallery, courtesy of Marsha Plotnitsky 2000


Coplans photographs explore his own body. In a seemingly brash manner he confronts us with the ageing process and contrasts more conventional images of the body in the as an object of beauty.
Coplans depersonalises the photographs by excluding his face, focus is placed on sections of the body, rather than the body as a whole. Often the arrangements become quite humorous and bizarre; in Self-Portrait (Back with Arms Above) 1984 (shown at the top of this post) Coplans body appears like a rock, his fists as if independent of his body/rock

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