Aaron Siskind

I chose Aaron Siskind because of his ability to take something as simple as a wall with pealing paint and turn it into a abstract work of art. Everyday sights become poetic and gain a whole new meaning. With his work the fields of documentation through photo and fine arts blur together. In my photo emulation I hope to draw techniques from him to capture texture, contrast, and shapes in everyday places. In addition my photos will be taken in a close up perspective to get that emotional and abstract feeling hes able to capture. 

Aaron Siskind was born in 1903 in New York City. Here he also began his career path starting as a highschool English teacher. He only started his journey as a photographer in the 1930s. That was when he joined the New York Photo Leage and worked on social and docmenteary focused photography. Using his skills in capturing and docmenting spaces he switched to a more abstract approach with his zoomed in photos capturing finer details in walls, paper, and other surfaces. 

Siskinds work is strongly influenced bu a handful of abstract artists. These people are Franz Kline, Mark Rothko, and Robert Motherwell. He formed personal friendships and bonds on the professional level with them to get a better understanding of there type of work. His own ideas and work mirror the bold energy that the painters emulate. He does this by finding texture and lines in his usal settings like the urban landscape of New York. These locations became his “canvas” to “paint” out his photos in expressive ways.