I am showing a group of manipulated photographs which are not new but until recently not shown. Actually I am somewhat proud of this group because it was among my first successful foray into digital art. It is done using photographs and photo manipulation software but bears little resemblance to a straight photograph.
I have always struggled with the personal question of how 'straight' a photograph needs to be. It is a question where what most consider straight photography loses. I am much less interested in what something looks like as opposed to how I can make something look in a photograph or digital image. A camera is no more than a tool, no more than a paint brush or a chisel. It is used to create art even though I have some difficulty thinking of what I do with a camera as art.
The group that I will be showing, Into That Locus of the Last Lost Souls was created at a time when I was experimenting with several different approaches to digital art. What began very abstractly as form and color evolved into Friends, Romans and Other Countrymen (may show later) which is still very abstract but takes on a distinct semblance to human forms with human stories and then Into That Locus of the Last Lost Souls where the images are still highly manipulated but undoubtedly human forms along with their individual stories.
I am very drawn to combining words with my photographs. They are both parts of the same coin--two forms of language. Sometimes it is simply an artist statement for a group of image, sometimes it is specific comments regarding a single image and sometimes it is a story which may be factual or fantasy. Words and photographs become one single expression in much of my photography.
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