| I began taking photos as an extension from my work in painting. At the time I felt that painting was not enough, I really needed a more forceful registry and I began to experiment with a camcorder, capturing motion images and then extracting photogram with software on my PC, a ridiculous system to work with, so I decided to use the appropriate hardware: a camera. I was interested in bodies as objects, I felt no interest about faces. I mentioned this to several girls via MSN and some of them were interested on my proposal. This is how my present work began. |  |
Unskilled, Haloed and Faceless – Yamandu Rodriguez
I began taking photos as an extension from my work in painting. At the time I felt that painting was not enough, I really needed a more forceful registry and I began to experiment with a camcorder, capturing motion images and then extracting photogram with software on my PC, a ridiculous system to work with, so I decided to use the appropriate hardware: a camera.
I was interested in bodies as objects, I felt no interest about faces.
I mentioned this to several girls via MSN and some of them were interested on my proposal. This is how my present work began.
Basically it’s made up of photos of women’s bodies like fragmentary strip teases, with the tacit condition of both parts, the models and me, and the faces do not appear in the camera shot.
The models are not professionals; they do not receive money from me when they model for these sessions. I contact them via MSN and we never see each other again after the photograph session day.
First off, I explain to them how I make my work. Then we make an appointment, which could be at her house, at a place in conformity or sometimes backstage at a punk concert (besides from visual artist I am guitar player of a punk band, http://www.loquero.com.ar), as well as in baths or any place that would be a private room.
I have no knowledge about photography technique. In reality, I am a visual arts teacher specialized in painting, as I said earlier, I dedicated several years to painting and I’ve began to use photography because I needed a better way to register the images in my artistic work. The cameras I use are cheap ones, a Sony Digitalis of 4 mega pixels and one analogical camera that came free in the supermarket when my mother bought a soda water.
I don’t go to the sessions with photometer or a silver umbrella in my bag. Also I use one Minolta Reflex camera but I’m fond of using the digital camera as you can see the photos immediately.
My photos are exhibited via big collages on the walls, as if they were the photos that are put in rooms, of disordered form and of different sizes.
Also I work with installations, simulating that effect, I make adolescent’s rooms, which include diverse objects that real bedrooms have: a bed, a bedside table, clothes, etc. The walls and ceilings are saturated with my photos and collages of some film posters.
In my last exhibition at Appetite gallery I was required to spend a whole week there inside the gallery space while I was setting the exhibition up. I wanted the room to feel lived in, so I left wine bottles, used cups of coffee and the leftovers from the food I ate that week. They generated the images of disorder, untidiness and accumulation.
An amateur’s halo is reflected in my photography. There is something unfinished, and to a certain extent the little intrigue and mystery that it generates is derived from what the viewer does not see: the cut of the faces and the glances. In the installations also I want an amateur style to be revealed, obsessive, with a dense climate, almost exhausting, saturated and psycho.
