Cindy Sherman
Cindy Sherman's film stills are all of herself. Her use of black and white film is central to the theme and feeling of her artwork. Cindy seems to look different in each one of her pictures. From different types of clothes to hair styles and hair color, the images portray acts of motion and images in sequence. For example in the picture above, "Untitled Film Still #13" Cindy is reaching for a book off of the bookcase. In any literal sense we can imagine another still of her reading the book or pulling it off the shelf. She makes it easy for us to know her intentions of what she is doing before and then after the still was taken. Moreover, CIndy is portraying stereotypical women figures and actions from the postmodernism times. Also many of her images compare to women in movies.
Jeff Wall
Jeff Wall's images combine social and artistic views in his art work. Being a writer helps Wall to accurately describe his images with a spontaneous theme that is often hard to grasp. In this way, Wall is a "painter of modern life". Wall finds inspiration in older work like Monet in his work, "Picture for Women". So we are able to see that Wall is taking older influence and combining it with his modern views which results in his old-but-new type of work. You can pick up on his idea of tension in the pictures. For the characters are life-size, close to the front of the image, in the foreground. The background is usually visually clear and somewhat simple which makes us focus more on the relationships between the people in the pictures.
Teun Hocks is quite a comical artist. In his images, he is the central character. The images are set up in a way where Hocks is stuck in a situation or some sort of comical event. For example the image above shows Hocks holding a large pile of sticks, and there is one on the ground. As most people know, when your arms are full and you drop something it is nearly impossible to retrieve the item without dropping all of what is in your hands. Hocks uses imagery to relay a message or story. His images could be seen as film stills, for he keeps us wondering how these things are happening in his images. It is also notable to talk about his color palette. Hocks seems to use earthy tones and natural colors and he uses deep shadows and saturation to create moods. Irony and scale are major themes in his work.
Gregory Crewsden's images seem to focus on the idea of isolationism. Most of his images include deep saturation and dark colors. The images relay deep concentration, because it seems as if we are supposed to really look at the picture and find the story behind it. Many of the characters in the images are not interacting and it arises questions. However, Crewsden leaves us in the dust, as his stills suggest motion, or a "frame" in a sequence where we are wondering what happened before the image and what happened after it. Another part of Crewsden's work is the lighting effects he uses. Since he actually has large lights positioned in place for these images, we understand that the lighting and spotlight effect on the characters is a very important focus and part of his work.
