Jenny Van Sommers
1. Personal Background
Jenny Van Sommers is an award winning still life photographer. Jenny went to an art school in Sydney, where she really found her photography style. She has been a photographer for 20 years. Jenny has worked for Prada, Calvin Klein, and Vogue. She then switched to painting after. She was born in Australia and now lives in Sei in London, where she is a London based photographer. She travels a lot, frequently visits the US and France.
2. Style
Her style is very pleasing to the eye. She is very creative and uses many colors to pull out the image. Her photographs are popular and unique; she uses geometric shapes that are positioned in different ways. Her style is very simple, yet makes you feel like it is very complicated. Her style is so simple it's perfect. She uses so many colors that just compliment each other. Many of her works are either shapes or foods in other object forms.
3. Philosophy
Sommer’s work is trying to tell you simple is creative. When you have an idea you go for it, and see where it gets you. Many simple things have a story in the photograph that tells a very complex story. Many of her works are very simple, yet still manage to tell you a complex story. Personally somer’s pieces don’t mean anything intense, but mean something that she memorizes and keep with her forever.
4. Influences
She influenced and showed me that simple is still great. Your photographs don't have to be crazy and insane. They can still be simple and tell a story. I really like her style and this will inspire me to take pictures like her and create my own simple yet complex story. She helped me create the pieces I have taken for this project.
5. Compare and Contrast
I chose this image as my inspiration because it really is simple, yet complex. It really shows a color theme and what she wanted to show. She used all different types of creme or containers. I did a home theme, I have a candle, two houses, and airpods. These are all found in a home and I use all of these things on a daily basis. I feel like these pictures are pretty similar in color, however very different in objects and angle of image.
I chose this piece of hers because it seemed really cool and very original from her. I really wanted to recreate it. I used a yellow pencil as the fry and play- doh as the ketchup. I really enjoyed making this piece. I feel like my picture is pretty similar in theme and what she wanted to show us, yet different in the objects I used.
I chose this image because it was very simple. This image chose two block colors to really show the shadows and the shapes. For this photograph I used play-doh and an eraser. This was a very easy and fun photograph to make. The challenging part was probably to craft the rectangle out of the play-doh. I feel like my picture was pretty close to the image she took. The only differences are the colors of the rectangles and how texturized her rectangles are.
6. Artist Statement
My images are very pleasing to the eye. There is a theme from all of my images. In the beginning it was really hard to choose which artist to do. There are so many to choose from. I really liked how Sommers images stood out to me, I really wanted to recreate them. The Gourmand was probably my favorite and the most fun to take because it was easy to find things in my house that can help fulfill what her picture needs were. This really represented shadows and lighting. My second favorite picture to take was the white houses, airpods, and candles. It was really nice to find all the objects in my house. This really represents a theme. The third picture had to be the two rectangles. This had to be the hardest because shaping the red rectangle took forever. This was also really fun though because all the products I could find in my house. This picture also represents shadows well and color schemes.
7. Sources
1. https://bellabocreates.com/2021/04/30/still-life-photoshoot/
2.https://www.jennyvansommers.com/
3. https://www.youmustcreate.com/2021/jenny-van-sommers/
Images
1. https://www.jennyvansommers.com/ “Untitled”(Sommers)
2. https://www.jennyvansommers.com/”The Gourmand”(Sommers)
3. https://www.jennyvansommers.com/ “Untitled” (Sommers)
2. https://www.jennyvansommers.com/”The Gourmand”(Sommers)
3. https://www.jennyvansommers.com/ “Untitled” (Sommers)