ARTIST
STATEMENT
ARTIST
STATEMENT
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I believe an artist's work is her best communication. However, for those interested in my thoughts on art and my work ...
The art I love fills me. Physically, I feel myself deep breathing and therefore relaxed and yet also excited by the beauty before me. Spiritually, I feel my soul is filled, too, nourished by something beyond the ordinary.
The artists I love are mostly painters--Monet, Matisse, O'Keeffe, Klee, Avery, Rothko, Diebenkorn. All colorists, so you'll find little black-and-white photography here. In fact, a specific color--resonating a particular chord--is often an unstated subject of my photographs.
The photographers I love do both black-and-white and color imagery--Atget, Steichen, Laughlin, Raymond, Meyerowitz. Their common thread, I think, is producing work that is contemplative, not so much in a thinking way but feeling. Their work is lyrical.
I also have an affinity for classical Chinese painting and Japanese prints. I believe this love informs my photography as much as the work of the geniuses I've listed. And then there are the life experiences we all have that affect our work, sometimes sub-consciously for being so deep.
All these influences impact my photo shoots. Like any artist, I'm drawn to certain subjects and then try to draw them out through my medium. I look for the best angle, composition, lighting, framing to capture what I see, what interests me in the subject, what I feel it has revealed to me.
To paraphrase Matisse, I try to photograph not so much the flower as my response to the flower. This means extensive--and expensive--experimentation, but I'm thrilled when I first see that one magical image a roll of film may yield. And that thrill is doubled when other people respond to the same magic.
It's like saying, "This is what I see--isn't it beautiful?" and someone else saying, "Yes, I see, and I love it, too!" After love itself, to me art is the greatest joy shared.
One more word about art (can you tell I was a philosophy major specializing in aesthetics?) ... I believe a work of art's meaning goes beyond the artist's intention. After all, we don't need to know this--indeed, often cannot know it--in order to appreciate a piece. At times even the artist himself cannot express his intention or what he thinks the work means.
A work of art has meaning beyond the creator's intention. That meaning evolves to include the responses the piece invokes. It becomes a little less about being one person's expression and a little more about others' interactions with it, becoming a shared experience. So, art takes on a life of its own. I've learned this by seeing which of my images get responses from people and why--and they're not always my favorites or my reasons.
Like Matisse again, I seek peace in my art and I believe photography should not lose its inherent and unique appeal in being grounded in reality. To me, the best work plays on this fact in a photograph that is of reality and yet manages to transcend it. Photography has its own magic.
I hope you feel some of this magic as you view my photographs. Some may take a little more time, others may have clues in the title. In the end, if the magic works, you will be filled in a way that only art affords.
Cella