Death and Destruction - Daniel Coburn

Daniel W. Coburn
Rachel Semanski

Website:  

This website about Daniel W Coburn was well organized. The home page brings you to his most recent successful project, The Hereditary Estate; a project which illustrates his family's traumatic history. There are links for his books, a documentary about his most recent project, his installation locations, about the artist, news, and where to contact the artist. The dull, grayscale colors bring a simplicity and drowsiness to the history of his photos, while the red text amplifies fire and heated affairs that the photographs try to mimic. 

Artist's artwork: 

Coburn depicks on his messed up family, providing startling portraits of family members. His is a Kansas farm family with strong religious faith. In The Hereditary Estate, Coburn focuses on his family members that were victims of his grandfather's abuse, especially his mother. Other aspects in his work include traumatic memories of domestic fighting, dysfunctional family life and stress from religious cults. His work seems to have a recurring theme of dysfunction. He demonstrates this family history metaphorically by using symbols and objects that represent a core event or family member. The intimate darkness characterizes the relationship among this family members. Coburn exhibits his work and publishes books. 

My Overview: 

This website provides much information about the artist and his artwork. Coburn was interesting to me because I can relate to him. I come from a dysfunctional family; I deal with the scarred memories of domestic abuse, stress from them that remains to this day. Family dysfunction is very rough on the heart and takes an emotional toll. The settings and facial expressions on his subjects' faces really represent the stress that is experienced in his family. I can see that emotional scared the artist as he has made his images. I was highly inspired by his books because I plan on creating photography books based on my work in the future.  

For the students whose parents are still together, do you feel fortunate that your parents are still together in a world where half of marriages end in divorce? 

For the students whose parents are not together, did it greatly affect your life physically and/or emotionally that has made you who you are today? 

For both, how can you photograph these instances?