Laura Letinsky

Letinsky has been working on still life arrangements since the late 90’s. Similarly to myself, Letinsky has been inspired by much of the renaissance still life painting which was often of every day arrangements and scenes often made of food. In this series, ‘Ill form and Void Full’, Letinsky continues to explore minimalist aftermath dinner scenes with discarded rubbish and stained table clothes. The present of modern era materials such as styrofoam cups and aluminium drinks cans adds a more modern edge to the work while the high key studio lighting makes some objects, often translucent in nature, almost obliterated.

I intend to start my experimentations by drawing from the lighting techniques used here but remaining with some of my favoured items such as dead flowers and skulls. I also want to start integrating dead animals into some of my scenes starting with the use of wiener rats as this is something I have in good supply.

I have often been reluctant to do exact artist copies as I feel this often becomes quite infantile and ‘GCSE’ in terms of experimentation level. Emulating and aspiring to the conditions under which an image is created is, for me, far more prudent and effective.

‘Somewhere, Somewhere’ sees Letinsky step outside the studio and placing her still life situations in more domestic environments the kind that could be familiar to many around the world. These scenes continue to represent renaissance still life paintings and feature dead plant life and decaying foodstuffs. The settings around these images are often visible and scenes frequently are perched upon the corner edge of a table, teetering on the brink of collapse. These scenes are extremely inspiring to me and will effect the next two shoots.