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What better way to follow up on The Little People of London than with an amazing tale of artistic giganticism? Julia Fullerton-Batten was born in Bremen, Germany and received her diploma in fine arts from the Berkshire College of Art and Design. She has since traveled the world and rapidly risen to fame as a premiere fine arts photographer, in no small part thanks to her surreal urban imagery.
In her Teen Stories image series, Julia has taken typical scenes and individuals and juxtaposed them at strange and incredible scales. This technique, in conjunction with using ordinary people (as opposed to professional models) has enabled her to produce an intentional awkwardness in the posture of the models that enhances visual tension within her photographs. Such work gives a strange new meaning to the terms “street art” and “urban art.”
Off the street, Julia’s portraiture is equally impressive. Instead of staging her subjects in neutral settings, Julia creates almost hyper-real environments playing off of the elegance, extravagance or eccentricity of peoples’ places of work. This creates a sense of personality around her subjects, a distinctiveness lacking in a typical staged portrait.
Finally, Julia’s personal work truly spans the spectrum of artistic possibility. These photographs show a range of talent, while somehow retaining� her distinctive� approach to composition� and the stark coloration characteristic of her work.
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40 Comments
October 20th, 2007 at 11:09 am
Interesting shots.
October 22nd, 2007 at 12:21 am
HI………Really nice works…..
October 22nd, 2007 at 9:17 am
Very surreal pictures… I love the giant ones. They are quite detailed too.
October 22nd, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Amazing shots :)
October 22nd, 2007 at 12:22 pm
awesome….
What a great creativity….!!
October 22nd, 2007 at 12:23 pm
Great Photos!
October 22nd, 2007 at 1:38 pm
The first few are amazing, so realistic.
Not moved either way by the others.
October 22nd, 2007 at 3:10 pm
awesome photos!
October 22nd, 2007 at 6:48 pm
first: if you like your art, if this photographer is happy with her work, you’ve made me happy.
however, imho, i dont find the giants series to be terribly impressive. i dont think the compositions are very strong. the whole idea of having American Apparel models dramatically strewn across purposefully skewed situations with painfully dumb looking faces is a terribly played out motÃÂf. the angles for the most part aren’t interesting and are all quite frankly the same. i would have liked to see more use of the environment, get down in that neighborhood! get on the level of the humans that would be living in this minature world! only then will you accomplish the effect of making these girls look gigantic and surreal. right now it just looks like some chicks got thrown out of a car accident onto a studios scale model of a suburban town. thats not what you were going for was it?
also in the provided text: “Such work gives a strange new meaning to the terms “street artâ€? and “urban art.â€?” …… um…. not really….
as far as the other photos, i feel like you are just documenting what you were lucky to find as very interesting looking places, but the photos dont really go beyond that. i don’t think they bring out the personalitites of their subjects anymore than they would for a random person being the subject.
the girl on the diving platform…. one could say it has visual tension because it looks like shes about to dive in, or is debating whether or not to. i would disagree. to me that photograph was nothing more than “i saw this weird looking swimming pool, go stand on that platform so we have a subject for this photo. oh yeah, and look really stark and profound and absent, because THATS how you look beautiful nowadays.”
by the way i’m not talking out of my ass. i go to art school, i know what its like to be in this field and be critiqued.
but if someone hasn’t given you a critique that is remotely close to what i said than i would be surprised, because thats what your likely to hear if you ever find your self in front of a panel down here in Detroit.
October 22nd, 2007 at 7:22 pm
i love the golden fish pic.
October 22nd, 2007 at 7:28 pm
wat the fuck?!
October 22nd, 2007 at 9:23 pm
Those are some pretty nifty pictures. Awesome.
October 22nd, 2007 at 10:39 pm
Great photos! It must be tough to edit something like this. Beside the scaling, there are many other details to worry about. Amazing work.
October 22nd, 2007 at 10:52 pm
Awesome shots! :D great work!
October 22nd, 2007 at 11:10 pm
@Wes: Well, everyone is entitled to their opinion. However, your opinion is (unfortunately) based on some misconceptions. The subjects of the photographs, for example, are not models. A number of your other critiques are also erroneous. Not to sound harsh, but it seems reasonable to ask that you please consider reading the text explaining the work prior to criticizing it.
@Everyone else: glad you enjoyed the post!
October 23rd, 2007 at 3:50 am
nice work
October 23rd, 2007 at 4:30 am
Wes H- “by the way i’m not talking out of my ass. i go to art school”
Hahahhaha… I go to art school too. I know plenty of people there who do nothing but talk out of their arses.
I did agree with one thing you said though- ““Such work gives a strange new meaning to the terms “street artâ€? and “urban art.â€?â€? …… um…. not really….”
The one is the hospital is by far my favourite. It’s the only one that connected with me on a deeper level than just aesthetic.
October 23rd, 2007 at 5:33 am
@Wes: First off, if you go to art school, something you should always be aware of (though it may not seem like it) is good grammar. Not capitalizing I’s, not spelling the simplest of words right, and choosing the right “then/than” is probably an important thing if you ever decide to work for a company, or if you even care what your reputation is going to be like in the future.
Secondly, the models are supposed to be awkward. I don’t know what type of art you are studying, but you’re supposed to make it your own, but make it something thought provoking or awe-inspiring. Otherwise, people won’t want to see your art. Using real people captures this raw beauty which, combined with the imagery, is breathtaking. Not the giant pictures, but the others capture people’s personalities by showing them in their natural habitat, if you will. People don’t want grand paintings of Queen Victoria anymore, they want surreal, thought provoking reality.
Thirdly, she’s from Germany. There are cultural differences that some people just don’t respect or recognize obviously. If you took a little time to read the text associated with the art, you might learn something about the artist! If you’re not a reader, then you have no right to critique, because you really have no clue what’s going on deep down.
You have the right to your opinion, and I’m not trying to change it or say it’s 100% wrong, but instead ask you to realize that there is a lot more going on here, and if you took the time to read up on the artist, including the text on this very page, you might understand her artistic choices just a lil bit better.
I’m sure art school is hard. The only visual art I’m good at at all is photography. But I would think, like with all schools, more constructive criticism would be used, and you might pick up on that being the correct way to point out your opinion. Sorry if I sound harsh, but I don’t think she’s going to be in front of a panel in Detroit anytime soon.
October 23rd, 2007 at 9:04 am
im a different wes.
i thought the pics were awesome. oddly sexy in a way.
October 23rd, 2007 at 9:44 am
I really like these pictures. They are great. Keep up the grat work with this blog.
October 24th, 2007 at 11:39 pm
a negative portrayal of the photographer was taken down. how many other spectator’s views do you plan to censor?
October 25th, 2007 at 1:41 am
@truth: Ironically, that simply isn’t true. If you scan the comments, in fact, there are highly critical (even incorrect) assertions aplenty. Comments are removed from this site when they are (1) offensive (e.g. racist, sexist or extremely explicit) or (2) when the commenter is spamming with a link to an inappropriate site.
@everyone else: The lively discussion is certainly appreciated. What is art, after all, if it provokes no debate? It has been particularly interesting to see two art students weigh in on opposite sides of the debate. Criticism is more than welcome, but as was mentioned to an earlier critic: please at least read the contents of the post and understand who the artist is so as not to make false assumptions about their background.
October 26th, 2007 at 11:08 am
Really very interesting Photo’s I dugg it - it was worthy of my Digg :)
October 28th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
love it. bravo.
November 19th, 2007 at 5:22 am
Very nice flicks.. superb.
March 1st, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Interesting. That giant series is really eye-catching
March 3rd, 2008 at 6:03 pm
wow. love it =)
April 11th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Wow there are some really beautiful pics in this post.Specially that one having the fishes.
April 11th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Those pics on streets are really well made.Nice work.
November 10th, 2008 at 9:30 am
The oddity of modern life can only be interrupted to say:
People before us invented most of this. Not everything has been done before. There are still people hurting in suburbia and around the world.
Our modern conveniences have done nothing to get us off of this planet in a significant way and our exploration of our own earth is just underway.
Can we all agree to respect each other and live happily.
Somehow I doubt it.
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