In our last Kick-About, Arcimboldo’s Vertumnus invited us to see identity reshaped through the shifting forms of nature. Now, as autumn deepens and the light grows thinner, our focus turns to Diane Arbus—an artist who found mystery in the everyday and empathy in the overlooked. As always, the works that follow were made in a short time—and for all previous editions of The Kick-About, go here.
Gary Thorne
“Our dad, Gordon, was often behind a camera pointed in our direction, and his interest soon spread to us as we experimented with early ’60s and ’70s models. Dad’s sister, Norma, took photography very seriously—as did their father, who worked as a typesetter for the Vancouver Sun newspaper. For the KA, here’s a snap of Dad in pursuit of us, followed by one taken last week at the Faversham Carnival.”
Charly Skilling
“I was looking at Diane Arbus’s picture of the two girls in identical dresses and it reminded me of a photo I had come across recently in the family archives.”
Lewis Punton
“I’m a big fan of Diane Arbus’ work, especially her adventures into the themes of identity and duality. So when her name popped up as the latest Kick-About prompt, I took the opportunity to create something inspired by my own feelings towards personal identity.
The vast majority of my 20’s were dedicated to the band that my brother and I formed in our parent’s attic, we made some amazing memories, got to see some great places, and met brilliant people along the way. As we’ve all gotten older and our careers have taken more of a front seat, we’ve naturally been able to put less time into the band; however music, and specifically heavy music, has remained a huge part of my life. The sounds and sights of someone letting out a distorted screech from a beaten down guitar or raspy vocal fry still brings me immense joy, and that often feels completely at odds with the corporate world that I now spend much of my time in.
The below drawing was made in around 10 minutes from graphite stick and blending stumps, using an image of a great band we once shared the stage with from around 7 years ago as reference. This show was the biggest opportunity that we’d been given at the time, we were opening for a band that I vividly remember having a poster of on my teenage bedroom wall whilst growing up; an incredibly surreal moment that I still regularly relive when I’m daydreaming on the Victoria line…”
Tom Beg
“I wanted to find something unusual and weird in something normal. In this case, it meant manipulating and positioning basic shapes until something a bit strange and otherworldly manifested.”
James Randall
“I’m a longtime fan of Diane Arbus. I wanted to try and create a mood ‘Arbus’ but with my media and colour. I’d never approach real people to ask for a snap, so I chose one of my Brisbane photos as a background and three Eadweard Muybridge figures as subject matter then drew it up in Adobe Illustrator. It looked so stilted that I kept the composition but turfed the rest, and became more playful with the figure shapes and adding photo textures and imagery. I eventually added a bird as I didn’t feel comfortable with the composition – you can see these birds in the city but more often in parks or leafier suburbia.”
Kerfe Roig
“I love masks, so Arbus fit perfectly into my current shadow theme. And seasonal as well.”
kblog.blog / methodtwomadness.wordpress.com
Phil Gomm
“In addition to Arbus’s richly unsettling ‘Halloween’ images, I’m channelling Nicolas Roeg’s classic film, Don’t Look Now (1973) in these photographs. I enlisted the help of a friend’s 10 year old son to help me stage these images in one of Whitstable’s famous alleyways (which run between its various streets). The location for these shots is a named alleyway, called ‘Squeeze Gut Alley’ – so named because at one end it narrows unpleasantly and occludes the view of what might lie in wait for you around the corner. On this day, it was the sight of my friend’s son dressed in a red cagoule and wearing the face of an elderly man. Whitstable being a tourist town, the photoshoot itself was interrupted numerous times by gaggles of families rather wishing they’d chosen another of the town’s alleyways to explore…”
philgomm.com / behance.net/Phil_Gomm
Graeme Daly
“I took these photos off the west coast at Salthill, Galway. It was mid-June of this year, during a rare, scorching heatwave that lasted the entire month. I still have to edit the mammoth number of images I took during that otherworldly spell—otherworldly because Ireland is nothing short of breathtaking and feels like a different country when the weather is actually good.
What I loved about these photos is the sheer variety of characters who inhabit the beach when the sun is out. Some made me smile, others shot me dirty looks, and a few left me a little melancholy—yet all of them made me wonder about their stories. It’s interesting seeing these pictures in black and white, without the colour of all the swimsuits, the floaties, and the super-blue water. They feel reminiscent of the work of Diane Arbus.”
@graemedalyart / vimeo.com/graemedaly / linkedin.com/in/graeme-daly / twitter.com/Graeme_Daly / gentlegiant.ie
Next time, our prompt is a quote that speaks of shock, invention, and the moment something new breaks loose in art…
Red's Kingdom 
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