One of my favorite things to do is to occasionally go onto Booooooom and look through the artists who submit work each month in the comments section. I scroll for a very long time looking for someone who has amazing work and is overlooked. This month I was browsing through and saw these amazing found photography works with text. I started reading the text and was mesmerized by the power of the phrases and statements juxtaposed with vintage photography.
The artist who constructs these intriguing works is, Emily Robards. She is a young artist living in Ireland. She works in many medias that include, photography, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, and video. I’ve found these poetic photographic imagery and text the most compelling of her work. It really grabs you from the deepest part of your psyche and of others. This collection of work she lists on her website under poetry of which these texts very much align with poetry.
The particular works I am featuring are from the 1st collection of poems. Some of the poems give off an melancholic quality, “she had had nothing to show from her time Long after she had left her home had remained barren”, shown with an image of a woman; while others are whimsical, “inside her tiny lights and mirrors created a limitless, starry universe.” paired with a young child of which is often a representation of naiveté and imagination. The photo booth setting allows for the viewer to connect with the subject in the image more intimately, it’s almost as if you are hearing their secrets, a private moment of which you may not normally get to experience, which is similar in the film Amelie. Amelie collects photo booth images of people who have left them behind, the photos reveal people in their true selves, either happy, sad, angry, or silly, moments and personality traits people would normally shield from society for fear of humiliation.
Along with the in depth messages, the vintage photography itself is a found attributes to the work along with the poems themselves of which look found and altered to create a new narrative. The image and the poems work together to create the personalities and little glimpses of the lives the artist has recreated for them. We do not know who these people really are, but by connecting their image with a poem pertaining to a life experience brings back the humanity to the unknown people of the past.
To see more of Emily Robards work, visit her website and Tumblr!
underexposedart.wordpress.com 