Still Life Storytelling
A still life is a work of art that depicts a collection of objects.
Typically, these arrangements include natural (food, flowers, sea shells, bones, etc.) and/or man-made objects (books, clocks, glasses, etc.)
(Read more about the history of still-life art)
Following tradition, many still life artists recreate their arrangements in some 2-dimensional or 3-dimensional art form like drawing, photography, or blown glass (see examples below). Some contemporary artists, however, exhibit object compositions in their original form, without illustrating them on a 2-dimensional picture plane.
These 3-dimensional works are sometimes referred to as assemblages.
Although not necessarily their primary function, still life and assemblage artworks document and convey stories about people who live in different times and places through the display of cultural artifacts.
Anthropologists, historians, and other researchers have relied on still life images to learn about other times and places. For example,
in order to create the costumes and sets for the film Girl with a Pearl Earring,
designers studied the work of Vermeer and his contemporaries.
Still life images represent more than the physical forms of the objects they depict.
They are symbolic/metaphorical representations.
Some artists intentionally play with this idea, using objects to tell stories and symbolize issues and ideas they want to draw attention to, for example race, gender, ethnicity, and socio-economic class. In this way, still life artists are eductors who use visual metaphors as teaching tools.
Click on the links below to see examples of still life artworks.
What lifeworlds do they illustrate? Who would inhabit these worlds? Who would not?
What ideas do these images give you for creating your own still life self-portrait?
Joey Kirkpatrick/Flora C. Mace