|
| ||||||||||||
|
| ||||||||||||
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Gail Thacker |
|
Artist's Statement The history of art is important, but for me it all starts now. I am what Alfred Jarry once called a pataphysican, which means that I believe all creation begins with the particular. I look for beauty in random occurrences. Polaroid 665 positive/negative black-and-white film allows me the freedom of experimentation. I leave the negatives, just like I do myself, vulnerable to change, mistakes, the unintentional, and spontaneous occurrences. It is the freedom of experimentation that allows these negatives to evolve into an art forum. I believe that photography is a slave to its subject matter and that this tradition runs deep into the subconscious of the viewer. The subject matter is important to me; it has to be, since photography is committed to seeing. I play the happy matchmaker between the subject and my manipulative technique. It is the subject's relationship to this technique that defines who I am as a photographer. Attitudes from my lifestyle have bled into my technique: the risk taking, the idea of trying anything once. This attitude creates another, separate realm in which to be creative. I manipulate the surface (emulsion), intentionally causing accidental expressionistic sweeps of color, contrast, and texture, thus bringing a new, unexpected energy to the photograph. I intentionally distort life. As soon as something is photographed, it becomes the past. I exaggerate time. The here and now instantly becomes a memory. I am in a constant relationship with this fact. I not only record the past, I recreate it, my past, my memories, my life...it is all so perishable. I print 665 positive/negative black-and-white Polaroid negatives onto color paper with color chemistry. I do this because of the philosophy of color that I was taught at the Museum School in Boston. In order to have a rich black or white, it is important to have layers of color beneath the black and white, a color theory I once used in my paintings and have incorporated into my photographs. |
| All images copyright June Bateman Gallery and individual artists. Reproduction by permission only. Prices are for unframed prints unless otherwise indicated. All prices subject to change without notice. |