John Baldessari’s work interests me in that he leaves out information by using colored shapes. The absence of a piece of a photograph creates a sense of mystery. It allows the viewer to use their imagination to fill in what may be behind the empty space or what may be suggested by the shape. I find the paperclip photo interesting because although it is a common item, it is famous due to the reputation of Baldessari.

I chose to emulate this photographer because I found his art to be simple yet complicated. I am curious as to how he was able to take other people’s photographs and make it his own by editing out certain parts of the photos. I wanted to emulate this artist because I found him to be comical. The paperclip photo is what urged me to emulate him. Seeing his work encourages me to pursue art, as art is literally whatever one wants it to be.

Although his work looks easy, I found it difficult to emulate Baldessari without copying him directly. I tried to emulate him by taking the shapes of animals and making stickers out of them. To emulate the paperclip photo with the word “AND”, I photographed large scissors I had constructed out of cardboard, and then glued a piece of paper onto the photo with a hand-written “BUT”. It is ironic that his work is difficult to emulate when on the surface his work seems to be simple.  

I believe with Baldessari’s work, he is wanting the audience to look at other aspects of the photos. The dots covering faces and animal/people shapes create mystery and cause one to question what is behind the shape.

I intended my work to communicate a sense of humor and slight mystery. I want the viewer to question why I put the animal shapes in the places that I did. The scissors are similar to the paperclip in that it is a common item. I interpret the paperclip as an item that combines papers together like how the word and combines two parts of a sentence. I wanted to include a conjugation word in my work. I chose the word but. I feel that the word but is a word that cuts a sentence like a pair of scissors cuts paper.

My work differs from the photographer’s work in that I took my own photos and used animals instead of people. I wanted to use animal shapes over circles. I felt that they added humor to my work. In Baldessari’s work, the shapes appear to be hiding images that actually exist in the photos, but in my work, I added animal shapes that were not there at all. I am confident that my work still effectively emulates his. Once a shape is blocked out or an image is added on top of a work, it is a mystery as to what is behind the added image. One can only speculate.