Sigmar Polke Analysis

Sigmar Polke was a German painter and photographer from 13 February 1941- 10 June 2010. He was a self taught artist that experimented with lots of different styles, materials and techniques to create his work. New York Observer said 'Polke used his camera like a sketchbook; and he treated his photos like paintings, experimenting with, altering or deliberately bungling the development process to create unusual visual effects. Most of his prints are creased and stained. Everything seems unfinished—not in the sense of lacking anything, but in the sense of still being in play'. 

The artist has used different textures and patterns within the image to add more depth and meaning to it. For example in the bottom right hand corner there is a dotted print on the background with what seems to silhouettes of people on top of it, this makes the work more exciting and have a better effect.

The photograph has been planned out as it has many different sections and images within the page, the artist must have composed them in a certain way. The artist has used an SLR film camera to take the photographs and then used the darkroom to print them onto the page. He has used multiple exposures and lots of different techniques to build up layers to the image such as combination prints, painting on developer and photograms. 

I really like this piece of photography as it has so much going on it really draws the viewer in as it makes you want to look at all the little details to try and find out what the artwork is about. It is also really interesting as i'd love to know how he made it. The only thing i dislike about it is that some parts seem to be over exposed and some parts seem to have no relevance to each other. However I would like to try out some combination prints and this has inspired me to try making  a photo montage or collage.