Artist's Statement | Resume | Biography | My Style and Vision | "Conversations"

At first I defined myself by how others saw my work: painterly, abstract, textural. Then, I began to analyze what it was about my vision and technique that produced this result. What at first was intuitive --  often the result of reaching past the limits “the books” defined as acceptable to capture an image -- became learned, and then reproducible. Thus, shooting with low natural light, often at low shutter speeds, I can produce a monochromatic and sometimes grainy image that creates the sense of painting with light, infuses the image with mood and feeling, and creates a sense of movement through time.

 

As I became more fluent with these processes, I discovered my passion for meaning  reflected in abstract forms that suggest iconic patterns. I began to look for yet another layer of meaning. How could I group images to create a visual idea that would suggest to the viewer something about how meaning is created via the layering of nature, materials, craftsmanship, and re-use. In that layering which is captured in the images much is revealed about history, how we change, what we keep from changing, what we remember, what we wish to forget, and the reclamation of beauty from destruction.

 

This can be seen in my portfolios: Relics of the Cultural Revolution; Icon Series; Elkins School;  Letters, Words and Books; Elkins High School, and, soon to come,  Obliterations. It's also a theme of many single images, such as Time and Materials, Abstractions from the Abstract, Daju Notices, What is the Shape of My Days, Warsaw I, etc.

 

For example, in the works Poland 1, Poland II, and Poland III, I am working with the disturbing and paradoxical concept of how a graffiti-like found image may be seen as profoundly pleasing, and then suddenly becomes ominous when the viewer knows the the actual context of the image. In this case, these abstracts were taken of a wall in the room next to the ovens at Auschwitz.

 

My hope is to invite the viewer to  experience an unspoken sense of beauty and meaning that makes their hearts pound, and to be drawn into a new way of seeing that my work visually suggests -- toward more understanding of how things (and ourselves) come to be as they (we) are.

Background Image from the Portfolio: Icon Series

Artist's Statement | Resume | Biography | My Style and Vision | "Conversations"