I try to avoid blogging about the highlight artist from Artistaday (a fantastic site that helps keep me updated on what is going on outside of my small life in northern New Hampshire), but when I saw a photographer from Hudson, New Hampshire was the artist of the day, I was sold.
It’s not often that I stumble upon an artist from my home state whose work is so damn interesting and both beautiful and revolting. (It doesn’t hurt that we have the same middle name) Sarah Ann Loreth does not say on her website, or her facebook, when she was born or if she went to school for art. She has, however, been highlighted in Vogue, created the cover art for many books, been published in several magazines (including Leveled, Lost Freedom, Lost in Thought, Grae, Musetouch and Illusory) and her work was selected for the cover of a Florence+ the Machine charity album.
Artist Statement: Sarah Ann Loreth does not take photographs; she creates them from scenes she pulls from deep within her psyche. Sarah is a fine art photographer from New Hampshire, who specializes in self-portraiture. In her work she tries to covey a quiet stillness of emotion with a connection to her natural surroundings. From her use of color she creates a reality found only in her imagination but so unbelievably human. She toes the line between darkness and light, unafraid to explore themes that others may find uncomfortable. Through death, destruction, suicide, or abandon, Sarah examines the darker side of the human spirit. With photographs full of stories and symbolism she sees a life in death that shouldn’t be feared. Her work evokes a connection from the viewer, a feeling of oneness of the human experience and a mystery that leaves you wondering what will happen next.
“I love the work of Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton. I am inspired by their dark examining of their inner workings. … I want my audience to feel. …I want them to feel connected to the human condition.” (Quiet Lunch Magazine)
Some of her subjects are professional models, and while those are interesting, I am most intrigued by the self-portraits. (Like “Blind Faith” March 19th 2012 from Loreth’s Waiting For God series).
“I never meant for the fishtank to break. But it did. It smashed in my tub with me in it and I got so mangled! So I decided to just go with it and turn the shower on haha”
Would “Sick” a photograph about a very personal issue, have been more powerful and meaningful if it was a self-portrait?
Sick
“Even for me, this is painful to look at. This is different for me. …I have chronic pain and have my entire life. The concept came to me last Friday as I spent the day hugging the toilet due to another migraine. … I thought it might be interesting to examine being sick from a unique standpoint. A series of portraits with the premise of “being sick”. Relatable in a sense that this is something everyone goes through in their life but painful and grotesque and completely honest” Loreth
Here is a pretty cool interview with Loreth about her techniques and experience with project 365 (one photo a day, for a year)
And who are the photographers that inspire you? Gosh there are so many. I also adore Cindy Sherman, Sally Mann, Diane Arbus, and Tim Walker! I don’t know, I am just so drawn to photographers that are able to tell stories and see the world in a different unusual way.
To what degree do you plan or envision your photographs before taking them? Pretty much almost completely. I don’t feel I create my best work when I “wing it”. My best work is created when I sketch out my details and completely think out what I’m trying to achieve. I like to have my concepts at least detailed a few weeks before the shoot.
I am especially interested in and inspired by her work that includes animals in one way or another. I like how she uses antlers as a mask or identity modifier…
The Standpoint of Daily Life (Holy crap. This is so interesting.)
Waiting For God August 2011 (this really freaks me out. that makes it successful, right?)
The Ground is Too Cold to Bury Our Dead
Octopi and naked women may not be original imagery, but I like this photograph anyways.
Untitled January 2012
(What I want to know is how the heck to you slap an octopus on your head? Where do you get an octopus? Is it still alive???)
To Have Gills still uses an animal to modify identity, but rather than placing antlers etc on her person, Loreth attempts to consume or internalize as a mode of transformation. It gives me the willies!
To Have Gills
Loreth writes “Although I am not especially fond of this photo I wanted to upload it anyway because it was insanely unpleasant and made me hate my life. I hate fish. I hate everything about fish. I am both scared and repulsed by them. This was a site to see however. Me, in my living room, in a bathing suit, taking photos of myself alternately dumping cups of water on my head and gagging with a fish head in my mouth. Totes a normal thing to do”
Loreth does have an etsy shop, but doesn’t seem to use it too much.
Wow these are awesome. I love the antlers and I shivered in fear at the octopus but I can’t stop looking at it. I am so drawn to it though the idea of an octopus on my head repulses me.
I think part of what makes the antlers even more interesting is that they are still attached to the deer skull. I can’t remember whose work I was looking at, but last week I saw a photographer who was working with an octopus. She had it covering her naked pubic area. Freaked me out. The colors and of course flowing tentacles with circular suctions cups are just great for composition etc, then you add the implications of an ocean creature suctioned onto your body and you have a recipe for a great piece.