Little Hollywood Tricks
An Interview with Natalie Krick, by Tom Winchester
Natalie Krick’s Rhymes of Confusion, currently on view at SF Camerawork, can be described as a collection of photographic collages. A combination of still life and portraiture, many of the pieces depict absent figures by collaging cut-outs from photographic prints, and, in some cases, exist as free-standing sculptures. The physical aspects of Krick’s artworks investigate the in-camera and post-production manipulative capacity of photography, and appear to react to how most images we see today are on screens. In this way, her creative process is similar to artistic approaches by Letha Wilson and Sara Greenberger Rafferty. Rhymes of Confusion helps to define what’s real and what’s not for the digital era, and does so by expanding the definition of photography.
Tom Winchester: What are some of your creative inspirations?
Natalie Krick: I draw inspiration from the history of photography, but mostly, in my work, I’m responding to images I see in popular culture. I spend a lot of the time looking at the cliché ways that women are represented in photography, and sometimes that includes looking at amazing fashion work. Sometimes it’s looking at what I consider the cliché images that exist on our periphery that are just repeated over, and over, and over, until they become meaningless.
There’s something I find really frustrating — well, many things actually — in the way that I see pictures of women in our culture. This idea of perfection, and the way the magic of photography can simulate perfection, and then repeat it over, and over, so that we’re bombarded with all of these perfect images. I guess, what really bothers me are images that are easy on the eyes. That’s usually what I’m trying to subvert; this kind of pleasurable looking that is not complicated.
Growing up, seeing pictures of celebrities had such an influence on my identity — this desire to look a certain way — I think there is a complicated nature of those images, and how we interact with them, and how we view them, but also, how they’re deemed trivial in our culture. So, I want to pull certain tropes from those images in order to create something that is complicated. I’m complicating these images by doing things like using my mother, and putting her in a position like a young, sexy, starlet, and using all the tropes and clichés used in making those photographs.
TW: Can you explain how “Bikini Line” (2019) was created?
NK: That piece came from a collage I made quite a few years ago of these images of women in a Victoria’s Secret catalog that were modeling bikinis. I’ve been obsessed with those silly pictures of women posing in bikinis, on the beach — what my boyfriend and I refer to as bikini babes — and how, every year, Sports Illustrated comes out with a swimsuit issue that seems to be the same thing, year after year. I had been wanting to create a piece from that collage for so long, and I tried so many different things that didn’t work, and then, finally, I just photographed my sister, Hillary, on the beach. I turned it in to a negative of itself, which made it seem very menacing and apocalyptic. The lightest part of the sky becomes the darkest part of the sky.
The curator of Rhymes of Confusion, Christopher Russell, and I were discussing Hollywood magic in films, and how, when a scene is supposed to take place at night, there’s this day-for-night shooting where they film during the day, and then, through filters and exposure, make it look like nighttime. I guess little Hollywood tricks are getting in to the work. When I think of day-for-night shooting, I think of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, and this scene on the beach that was obviously shot during the day, but it’s supposed to be at night.
TW: The tricks you use seem to be for the purpose of questioning the idea that photography is the medium to most accurately represent the real world. To me, these are manifested in the new works by incorporating collage, and sculptural, three-dimensional elements.
NK: With the new pieces, I’m really interested in perception, illusion, trickery, and the idea that our eyes can’t necessarily be trusted. And, on top of that, photography can’t be trusted. I was wondering how these objects could further trick, and further become an illusion by the way they’re presented. When I used to look at images mostly in magazines, and I could hold them, there was something permanent about them. Now, the images I see mostly are online, and there’s more of a fleeting aspect to them. I think that had an influence on me: wanting to make something that is more physical, can be examined, and is looked at in real life.
I want there to be manipulations on every level of the picture-making process. The magic of photography, the trickery of photography, is present in all these layers: who you’re putting in front of the lens, how you’re lighting them, the angle that you’re shooting, and then there’s the layer of post-production. I’m interested in exposing the trickery of all these different layers. Before, when I was making the Natural Deceptions work, I was doing a lot of trickery before the lens because I wanted to have this kind of confession of the manipulation that’s happening. So, there are Photoshop elements, but also this kind of in-camera trickery, or collage. Recently I’ve also added a further layer of physical exploration by using the actual prints.
I think about how different it is to view images now; about the fact that the first iPhone came out when I was a senior in college. It was a pre-Instagram world. I’m at this point where I don’t really know how people interpret photographs. I have an understanding that maybe there’s a dichotomy where if people know a photograph is un-manipulated, as in not a digital collage, and was captured in-camera, that there is still this belief that it could be a truthful image.
TW: #nofilter seems to be an example of how digital images have to actually prove they haven’t been doctored.
NK: Those almost enforce the idea that if something’s not done in post, and if there’s not a filter on it, that there is some truth to it, which is not true.
TW: To me, an investigation of truth in photography comes across most overtly with “Blonde Blowout” (2019). That piece appears to me as a deconstructed, analog version of the images that could be compiled to create an HDR image, or that section of a filmstrip where someone had bracketed their exposure.
NK: It reminds me of making a test strip in the darkroom. I made the first picture, of my mother, knowing that I was going to do this, but I wasn’t quite sure how it was going to turn out. I knew that if I rephotographed the same photograph, it was going to get softer, and that’s where the idea came from. So, I rephotographed the photograph, had a print made, rephotographed that print, had a print made, and I kept doing that over, and over. It’s kind of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy. And the image degraded in such an interesting way that I didn’t necessarily expect. It really fell apart.
I was also thinking about anti-aging advertisements for these anti-wrinkle serums that promise to erase details of the face. Talking to my mom about aging — it’s difficult, especially being a woman. Of course, I think she looks fucking awesome, but I didn’t want to erase those details in Photoshop.
I didn’t expect it to blow out like that, which is one of the reasons why I titled it that way. It’s this photographic term, like blown-out highlights, where something is over-exposed, and you lose detail, but it’s also a hairstyle that’s pretty popular right now.
I love when things can have multiple meanings, and also are a little funny.
