At the beginning of second year, Dominic Davies came and did a talk to the uni about his work. I almost straight away fell in love with his practice, I found it to be so very interesting and alluring. He mostly spoke about his work where he focused on a man with an illness called Synesthesia ‘is a neurological condition in which information meant to stimulate one of your senses stimulates several of your senses.’ (Healthline, 2020)
This sounded like a really tough illness to have, and a very difficult project to execute, however Dominic Davies created a, simply beautiful project from the situation. Using still lifes and trying to use the objects or foods in which the subject could taste within these frames. ‘He revealed that I tasted of ‘carrot cake with a slight essence of plastic’, My wife Floury is unsalted butter, my son Milo tastes of finger nails.’ (Davies, D. 2013)
Family Portrait - Dominic Davies
Davies is one of my main inspirations for this project due to having chosen to create different still life images to symbolize Greek Mythology. For example, in my Athena study, I included an owl which represents wisdom, Olive oil as she was the bearer of the olive tree to the Greeks, Chess to show War and strategy and thyme to represent courage and bravery. I really admire the type of lighting he uses in his work and how he is not afraid of shadows which really inspired me to play around with shadows and reflections a bit.
The portrait itself seems rather odd without the context and is also seems a bit revolting, which is why Dominic Davies did so amazingly at this project, seeing these different foods within the frame almost sets off my sense of taste and allows me to almost taste all of these things together, and this is how I would imaging that the subject of this project feels like most days. So not only did he create a beautifully, well lit image, he created something which almost allows us to sense what the subjects senses.
I guess that by using animation in my project, I am sort of using the same concept, as I am showing the viewer what happened in these myths and almost what it would have been like to be there and see what would happen during the stories.
If it wasn’t for Davies, I do not think I would be so interested in Still life, but seeing just how much you can do with and how, if it is well done, it can be so symbolic of a situation or of a person.
Roast Beef. Beef – Sound of a leather saddle / or creak of a Tree . Yorkshire puddings – Church organ – Horseradish sauce –1960’s Police bell .Boiled green beans – A school blazer.