My work has been shown locally, nationally and internationally, recently exhibiting work in the 2017 Songzhuang International Photo Biennale in Beijing, China. I am an artist by nature and a photographer by choice; fine art photography, photo mixed media, photo montage. I started shooting in the late 60’s in a traditional way: set the F/stop and shutter speed, compose through the viewfinder and sh
oot. My interest in enhancing photographs started early on as well, hand tinting with Marshall’s photo oils was one of my first approaches. While working in the print department at the Ringling Museum of Art in the late 70’s, I was introduced to the work of Jerry Uelsmann. His work was something I had never seen before; using multi image, multi layered negatives to print thought provoking and surrealistic photographs quickly caught my eye. Through the 80’s I continued to explore other ways the traditional photograph could be used as the starting point for different ideas. The idea that a fine art photograph did not have to be confined to the edges of a single sheet of paper changed my perspective on the medium and motivated me to again explore the idea that photography could be used in different ways rather than the traditional single image print. In the early 2000 I was introduced to Doug and Mike Starn’s large, distressed, photographs. Their work was an epiphany; the idea that beauty could be seen in that which is may not be considered traditionally beautiful. I later found out there is a word in Zen for that, Wabi-Sabi. My subject matter can range from outdoor landscapes, to portraiture to manipulated images of people, places or in many cases, hyper sexual themes. For over a decade I have been focusing more and more on photo montage and photo mixed media; using my photographs as the basis for montage prints or single mixed media paintings using paints, wax, charcoal and other mediums. I photograph on location as well as staged sets. I use wigs, masks and costumes on subjects to enhance the surreal idea I want to create. Throughout my artistic career, I have always used materials at hand to create the image. That approach has changed very little in over forty-five years. While my approach has transformed through many evolutions, photography has consistently been the primary vehicle to deliver my vision. Photography has become so flexible and I use that flexibility to achieve that vision. I shoot and print traditional film and silver prints. I shoot negatives and use high resolution scans to work the image digitally. With Lightroom and Photoshop, I manipulate images in different ways. With the evolution of digital printing, I can transfer an image, either to paper or digital film to transfer to another surface to create photo mixed media pieces using paint, charcoal, airbrush, plexiglass or wax.
