Absence can be a powerful representation in art. Removing elements from an image creates a different meaning for said image. This post is inspired by artist Matt Siber, in his Floating Logos, and The Untitled Project.
I have taken a few images, removed some element from it creating a different image. As an athlete I looked at the dynamic of other worldly admiration for athletes, and winning. Below is a bird's eye shot of the arena during a big playoff game in college basketball.
The image started off being one showing community, in supporting team and university. However, removing the court drastically chances the image. It is no longer expressing the positive idea of community, these people surrounding, cheering, and gazing on the empty space are mindless unsophisticated, lemmings essentially. Don't get me wrong I love sports, and community around sports it is just when you remove the necessary element to cheering on a team, there is a different meaning that emerges.
Again another sports example, here the George Washington Women's Basketball team celebrating a conference championship. With the trophy removed it creates a strange feeling as they gaze at this void. The team dances and celebrates their accomplishment but it takes on a different feeling completely.
These two examples I created when removing a element of the image a happy feeling left with the one of dread, I want to revisit this and try remove the sad feeling and add a happy feeling with subtraction.