Susan Goldsmith: Talbot’s Cow

  • ©1999, Susan Goldsmith


Artist(s):



Title:


    Talbot's Cow

Exhibition:


Creation Year:


    1999

Medium:


    Framed C-Print

Size:


    11 inches x 14 inches

Category:



Artist Statement:


    These cows were observed in a pasture in Lacock, England near the former home and studio of Henry Fox Talbot, where he took his first photograph – where the art of photography was born. The artist saw them through a window in Talbot’s home, climbed a fence to get closer, and photographed them.

    The paintings are about compositing images that inspire collaged portraits about cows in a landscape. The goal was to work with a single image of a cow and in some way change the cow enough so that it was somewhat unreal or surreal.

    Many of the techniques used to create these images are directly related to the artist’s work at Industrial Light & Magic, where she is a 2D painter and rotoscope artist. The techniques include: making articulate mattes, various types of masks, extractions, clean plates, marks that assimilate marks on canvas, and ways to blend colors and edges similar to painting in oils or drawing with pastels. It is this “marriage” of technique and process that makes these digital cow paintings unique.