Monday, September 6, 2010

A Haphazard Artist Statement

My bare feet cross with one another as they lay sitting on top of the low, square table in the Crosby 0 lounge. My MacBook rests on my lap, obscuring my view of the wooden slab that lines the edge of the table. I begin to notice how the wooden patterns are dissimilar; the grains form random, uncalculated treads along the surface. These grains create segments, or rectilinear divisions of space. I reconsider my angle in relation to the wood grains; I’m seated slightly right of center of the table. I now fail to see my laptop as a machine, as it becomes a culmination of two intersecting rectangles. These rectangles bisect the spaces formed by the wood grains. Eventually, this line of thinking expands to encompass the surrounding couches, windows, and people, creating an endless possibility of spaces.

I haven’t always interpreted my surroundings in such a manner. It’s only since I began photographing architecture that life began to break down into lines, shapes, and forms. Every style of photography I adopt changes the way I view the world, doing so even without a camera. Each field forces me to take notice of particular things. I’ve attempted various styles of photography, from portraiture to photojournalism to architectural, but the only one that seems to capture and hold my attention is the last. I prefer the way I view the world when I photograph architecture, even when I don’t have a camera in my hands.

In order to capture a specific genre of life, I resort to different cameras and various lenses. For architecture, I use a manual 35mm, preferring to have complete control over the focus and aperture. I fill the back with black & white tri-x film, as color would just distract from overall design. The line of thought I referred to before is the byproduct of this process and the purpose of it. By simplifying the mechanisms and materials, I allow the shapes to speak for themselves within my images.

I continue to produce architectural photographs because I feel that they reveal new dimensions to both me as the creator and others as the viewers. As a person easily fascinated by small details, I find the intricacy of simple objects and buildings to be something deserving of attention. Modernist architecture generally serves as my muse, as the industrial-inspired, functional structures appeal to my aesthetic tastes; I prefer designs unencumbered by excessive ornamentation. The purity and simplicity inherent in modernist architecture is overwhelmingly beautiful to me and I seek to convey this within my photographs.

While I hope to create my own architectural forms in the future, for now I am content to understand those of others via photographic observation. I try to visit as many modern buildings as possible, such as the grain elevators in Buffalo, NY. While these structures were never intended to serve as inspiration, their uninhibited, unornamented, vertical forms led to the creation of modern architecture. I hope that by studying and photographing such influential forms I will be better equipped to design architecture as a graduate student.


My definition of art is anything that changes a person emotionally. “Emotion” is a widely subjective term, though I believe art to be dependent upon the individual interacting with it. While I may feel inspired or moved by a surrealist painting, someone viewing the same image in the same context may be unimpressed. For me, the work would be considered art, but for the other individual, it would not. I have no issue with a painting being “art” to one person and “not art” to another. The purpose has been achieved so long as viewing the piece has altered one person, perhaps even just the creator.

1 comment:

  1. This is sort of disjointed for an artist's statement, but as a free write, it's informative about your work. The last part feels especially tacked on however; that might be something you want to think about if you're going to incorporate that idea into a real artist's statement in the future. I liked all that you said about how photography changed the way you look at things, although the style of your first paragraph didn't really seem in keeping with something you would want to eventually use in your statement - it was a little too informal, and read like fiction writing, especially in the use of the present tense. I was also left wondering about your intent to study architecture in graduate school. I think you should say more about why you think photography will help you with this, and what else you're doing to achieve this goal. Why do you photograph instead of making drawings, or designing your own buildings? I think this is a serious confusion in the statement, because your motivation is very unclear. If actually studying architecture is what you're really interested in, why isn't that showing up in your art?

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