Stepping Out Of the Comfort Zone

My exploration of the photographic works of Gregory Crewdson continues, for this post I am honing in on a photograph he captured back in 2001 from his Twilight collection.

(Gregory Crewdson, Untitled, Twilight series, 2001)

If we look at the picture above we see a guy reaching into the part of all our houses we don’t necessarily like to visit. We know it’s there but we don’t spend much time dwelling on it. This guy dares to venture there. A dark, cold and lifeless underfloor where the ugly mechanics of a house dwell. He is between two parallels. He’s confident, he’s only wearing boxer shorts but that doesn’t matter to him, that hasn’t put him off. Although his arm reaches into the unknown or perhaps the underworld where things are more grubby, the rest of him stays in the comfort of a shower, in the comfort of a reasonably sized, well maintained bathroom. There is a curious light about this picture. The electrical lighting in the bathroom is on, yet a reassuring warm jet of light penetrates the window making its mark on the wall just catching two perfectly straightened towels. With the dark and cold underfloor only taking up a third of the picture he is probably safe for now.

The aesthetics of Crewdson’s work can some times be likened to a painting . The viewer has to reassure his/herself on first sight of some of his pictures that it is a photograph they are reading such is the strength of the painting qualities and parallels of his photographs. His pictures have almost achieved the fusion of a photograph and painting in one. His pictures have transcended into another arena within art. It is, aesthetically speaking, a whole different art matter in its own right and a new brand of expressionism. What helps contribute to the painting effect is the choice of colours that is contained within his pictures and the way these colours have been softened in some areas but accentuated in other parts, it is as though they have then all been finely sanded down. This couples well with the nuances of lighting Crewdson experiments with and helps to produce this overall painting effect.