Rossina Bossio » photography

Comme des Filles, the art book

Rossina — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 16:37:16 +0000

Last January I met with Swedish artist Jonna Bergelin to work in an art book project inspired by the books On the Road by Jack Kerouac and Off the road by Carolyn Cassady. Most people have heard of only the first one. Actually, the length of the articles about the books on Wikipedia illustrates how unpopular is Off the road compared to On the road. However, both books tell two sides of the same story: the story of the Beat Generation, term that designated a group of adventurous writers inspired by jazz, poetry, drugs, sex, eastern religion, hedonism, and a general rejection of mainstream western values. Jack Kerouac is one of the writers, and he wrote his book as one of the bunch; Carolyn Cassady, on the contrary, was the wife and mother of 3 kids of another member, Neal Cassady; in her book she reveals the not-so-cool side of the story, and she breaks down the myth of the ‘wonderfully indomitable beatniks’.

Jonna designed the clothes, inspired by the the figure of Carolyn Cassady, and afterwards we met to create a series of photographs where I was the model. The final result is a book, titled Comme des Filles, that is currently being exhibited at Stockholm, Sweden Gallery Grafiska Sällskapet. As I promised on my Facebook, today I’m sharing with you more pictures from the series! I said I was going to show you the entire series but we’re now looking to possibly edit several copies of the book, and if I show you all the pics now I’d spoil the possibility of actually selling the book ;) hope you’ll forgive me! In the meantime, have a look at these:

As a final treat, here’s a recent interview I did for Colombian magazine Neon, where you can see footage from the making of photos 3 and 5, as well as me talking about my work (in Spanish):

Entrevista a Rossina Bossio, artista colombiana. Exclusiva para revista NEON segunda edición from REVISTA NEON on Vimeo.

*Note: If you are an editor and are interested in this book, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Finally: The Watermelon series

Rossina — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 14:35:08 +0000

I first talked about this series back in October 2009…perhaps some of you have seen a couple of images posted on my Facebook page. I simply never found the right moment to post the whole series…I felt it was going to drown among paintings, drawings and random events, and would never get the attention I thought it deserved. But now it has passed way too much time and I feel better to post it now than to forget the pictures in my infinite photo archive…(click to enlarge).

I loved taking these pictures. The model is Clara, a friend from hometown who has already posed for several paintings of mine (e.g. Photo Frame and Armchair). She lived in London for a year until December 2009. Being that we were both living in Europe at the time, we agreed we should take the opportunity and meet in Paris for a photoshoot. We met on a September Saturday morning, only for a few hours. We didn’t plan much, I even thought we weren’t going to find a place to take the pictures. I deeply thank Kirsty Mitchell, who I met the same weekend, for helping me with that, and her partner Matthew Stevenson for carrying the heaviest and most expensive watermelon I’ve ever bought. Oh yes, the watermelon is the only prop I planned in advance. I couldn’t help but visualize Clara’s ‘Lydia-from-Beetlejuice’ features with a juicy watermelon. It turned out it was her favorite fruit so she was extremely happy to eat the entire thing -swear I didn’t know!

Back from Colombia

Rossina — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 15:00:21 +0000

Note: The photos bellow where taken by me but are not representative of my artistic work. To view my official Photography please click here.

I’ve hesitated a lot before deciding to publish this post. I was thinking the content probably fits my Facebook page better, but then the image quality on there is pure rubbish so I thought: why not?

I spent from December 1st /09 to January 3rd /10 in Colombia, half promoting my work and exhibiting, half visiting my family&friends and just having fun. I took several pictures, although not as many as I had planned before the trip. I first wanted to take zillions of pictures, particularly of the beautiful urban landscapes that many people abroad don’t know about (because sadly, a lot of people think Colombia is just an extremely dangerous jungle filled with drug dealers and guerrillas…which is rather far from the truth), and share them here. However, to be honest in Colombia I hardly felt like taking my camera out. I just wanted to be there and enjoy the experience for real -and not behind the camera-. Now I’m hating, for instance, not to have taken enough pictures of Bogotá, my city, the capital.

I did take some pictures, of those things that caught my eye strongly enough as to make me take over my laziness and get the camera working. Most of these pictures where taken in Los Llanos and Subachoque, two very different places with different landscapes and weather, but in the same country. I really enjoyed my time there. Now I’m back on track, in France, with some interesting projects ahead and a lot of pictures to edit from last year. In the mean time, let me just share a bit of where I come from with you…

I’ll probably add more city photos soon…

Ps: If you want to see photos from my exhibitions in Colombia, you can go here and here.

Before leaving…

Rossina — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:31:47 +0000

About a month ago I did a fashion photoshoot in a professional studio. It was really an amazing experience…huge thanks to photographer Raphaël Auvray for the opportunity! Also to Les troubadours du Chaos, for the beautiful clothes; to Chloé Collewet and Camille Bodin for being such great models, and to Nicolás Díaz Durana and Aude Mazza for the great help!!

I was hoping to finish these pictures before traveling to Colombia but it was really impossible. I was cought up preparing my presentation for University Jean Moulin Lyon III and I even haven’t had the time to finish my Watermelon series, which I had already announced and hope to finish soon! At the moment I’m packing my bags, and I want to share the images I’ve already finished, before I disappear for several days. Click on the first image to view the slideshow.

Models: Chloé Collewet and Camille Bodin. Clothes: Les troubadours du chaos (link). Studio, lighting and general assistance: Raphaël Auvray. Concept, Makeup, Styling, Photography and Post-Processing: me. Thank you all!!

I plan to write a full report of this photoshoot whenever I get the time. In the meantime, if you’re curious, you can see a complete ‘behind the scenes’ coverage on my Facebook: CLICK. Thanks to Aude and Nicolás for those pics :)

Shooting Belladonna (Part 2: I love Fashion)

Rossina — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 12:47:01 +0000

Click here to read the first part of this entry (i.e. more pics!). Click on the images to enlarge.

These last three are more like outtakes:

Model: Belladonna Friis.

I still have to finish editing the watermelon pics I mentioned in the last post, taken the same weekend of Bella’s shooting. Aaaand…last Friday I had an awesome photoshoot in a profesional studio, with a Phase One camera, two beautiful models and amazing clothes from a local store. I have several hours of post-processing ahead!

Shooting Belladonna (Part 1: Domestic scenes)

Rossina — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:35:20 +0000

Some of you may have seen a preview of this shooting through my Facebook page. The same weekend I went to deliver Kirsty’s painting in Paris, I also had two scheduled photo shoots: 1) With Clara Garrido, a close friend from Colombia -who’s served as a model in a couple of my paintings and photographs- including the most expensive watermelon I’ve ever bought (20 euros!!)…you’ll get to see those soon, hopefully! 2) With Belladonna Friis, fashion model working in Paris.

Here’s the first part of my work with Belladonna:

These 6 photos are certainly not the most glamorous because, although fashion was intended to be the main thing, I was trying to keep everything within my personal artistic universe. Bella was great to work with, very creative and enthusiastic, aside from being a beautiful and great model. These are definitely some of my favorites from the shooting. The last B&W picture showcases two of her paintings in the background.

After the ‘domestic’ scenes we passed on to a more ‘fashionistic’ atmosphere. At the end of the session Bella ended up taking a bath with her clothes on! Stay tuned for the rest!

Pour Agathe…

Rossina — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 19:05:48 +0000

A photo from this summer (click to enlarge)…models are Agathe and Aziliz. There are more from this shooting to come…

ps: Click here to see pics from the exhibition in Bourges, mentioned in my last post.

Chloé

Rossina — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 12:13:22 +0000

Last week I had a photo session with a beautiful girl from Rennes, Chloé Collewet. She’s a former drawing student of mine, and she turned out being a wonderful model! The idea was to get more material for the “special portfolio” I’d mentioned, which consists basically of a group of ‘edgy and fashionable’ photos I’m gathering for my agent. -For those who don’t know, fashion is one of my big passions!-. Chloé kindly agreed to pose for me, as well as bring garments of her own, previously chosen by me, to create different ‘looks’. All pictures where taken in my neighborhood; I had a lot of fun doing styling, makeup, etc, for each one of the shoots.

I actually wasn’t planning to show all these images here, but I really like them! Here go some outtakes too:

On another note, I will be exhibiting for the second time in France in the following months. More about this soon!

‘Artsy’ Sweden

Rossina — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 13:00:31 +0000

There’s a sense of absurdity that fills everything in my life at the moment, weakening all statement, ideal, hope or belief. Since I don’t have much to say lately, instead of waiting to be struck by an idea, I find myself thinking of interesting angles from which to capture places I pass by and people I encounter.

I’m also finding more and more difficult to play with images in Photoshop; I’m only tweaking contrast and saturation, and that’s about it. The type of photographs I usually enjoy has changed too. These days I like simpler images without much trickery involved, good compositions and color combinations, nothing pretentious or overnice. Even better if it’s something disturbing and appealing. I run upon this kind of images more often in fashion magazines/ web-zines than in ‘art’ circles…some examples: Lina Scheynius, Janieta Eyre and Terry Richardson.

During my holiday in Sweden I took several touristy snap shots. Nevertheless, I managed to capture some images I consider good enough to upload here. They are a fair example of what I said above. *Click on the thumbnails to enlarge.

Models: Tove Florén, whom you may recognize from previous photos, and me.

Medicine and Weapons

Rossina — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 13:32:36 +0000

I just got back from a trip to Sweden where I took some photos that might turn into something worth sharing. While I do some post-processing, I’d like to post a few photos from the last month. The first one is part of the “special portfolio” I mentioned here. The other two, “Medicine and Weapons” and “M”, are explorations on the subject of women’s masturbation. Although I was a bit unsure about them at the beginning, they’ve grown on me. I feel a slight change of style is developing in my photography, probably as a result of my general boredom with art and images these days…

*Click on the images to enlarge.