ARTIST STATEMENT

The work presented in this show is a departure; not a dramatic one, for some aspects of these new images do relate to my older work. It is a departure along the lines of going for a walk as opposed to getting on a train. Put simply, I have begun to look inward to find my images whereas I used to look out.

In order to create that early work I became a conduit between a reality which provoked an emotional response from me and a fixed image which (if successful) had the power to evoke a similar emotion in the viewer. My modus operandi for those years was much as Henri Cartier Bresson described it: what the eye does is to find and focus on the particular subject within the mass of reality: what the camera does is simply register upon film the decision made by the eye.

As I begun using large format cameras and utilizing antique and obsolete photographic processes, I also began to reject this \\\'decisive moment\\\' school of thought.

My recent works exemplify this rejection on two levels. Firstly there is the exclusion of the \\\'mass reality.\\\' The images are created rather than found. There is a rearrangement of the sequence of events that leads to the existence of the image. The emotion (the looking in) is identified initially and brings about the motivation to create the image. An image which illustrated a state of being or an emotional state.

The other level is a rejection of the \\\'decisive\\\' aspect. Much of this work consists of diptychs which are in essence very short movies. There is movement involved and an enticing ambiguity created. These images purposefully raise more questions than they satisfy. They speak of ones fascination with twins. Are we compelled by their difference or their similarity? They address duality.

The process of creating a photographic image (or any image for that matter) is fraught with decision, with choice; which negative to print, which print to present.

The diptychs strive to reveal something of this process of choosing by including choices for the viewer. I have essentially solidified an \\\'indecisive moment.\\\'

As pertains to the content of the work I have concerned myself with certain states of being which I have experienced. It is a dialogue with the world loosely based on experiences of my child bearing years; a saga of mindful waiting, of containment, of primal elements, bodies of water, growing, thawing, burning. I believe birth and death to be the only true mysteries left and each contains an element of the other.

Once when I was somewhat vulnerable emotionally, I came across an image made by Julia Margaret Cameron in 1865. In the foreground of the picture is a half-naked child of perhaps two years old, prone on a velvet divan with his head turned toward the viewer and his eyes closed. Behind him in profile is a young woman. The title of the picture read \\\'Shunamite woman and her dead son.\\\'

When I read the title, I began to cry, suddenly struck by the profound sadness of the document. But then I looked more closely at the photograph. The boy\\\'s shirt is gathered awkwardly under his arms revealing the entirety of his belly, loins and legs. Knowing the entirely unspontaneous nature of picture making in 1865 it became instantly obvious to me that the boy was not dead at all.

The reason for not straightening his shirt and presenting him more like the formal postmortem portraits of the time was that the photographer did not want to risk waking the sleeping child and ruining her tableau. I was instantaneously comforted by the knowledge that the boy in the picture was not dead. . .and then it occurred to me that seeing as the picture was taken over 130 years ago, indeed at the time I was viewing it, not only the boy but the young woman and the photographer were dead as well. This knowledge however did not bring me to tears.

This experience raised a question in me about the inherent nature of photographs. Most of them have death in them somewhere. Because the moment depicted in the image is forever gone and what we see is only a shadow.

But it also brought up another point for me. Often, we see and react to what we are told to see and react to. Artists can be deceptive in how they evoke an emotion or response to their work. For example Joel Peter Witkins\\\' photograph \\\'Woman Breastfeeding an Eel\\\' has always intrigued me, but it\\\'s the title that gives it weight. I see no eel when I look at the image. But when we read the title we want to see the eel suckling, we want the Victorian boy to be dead, we long to be manipulated, really. To be moved.

In this age of digital photography and computer enhanced imagery, manipulation is only a click away and I wonder if the truly fantastical, the honestly fantastical in photography could be a thing of the past. Though I have spoken both of a rejection of reality and an attraction to manipulation when it comes to the tradition of image making, my methods remain antediluvian. The photographs presented in this show are perhaps performances of a sort, but each still represents a real event.

EDUCATION
Bachelor of Fine Arts Rhode Island School of Design
Professional Photographic Printmaking
br 1986-89 Produced a series of limited edition portfolios in platinum for Aaron Siskind
1986-87 Created albumen prints for New York based artist Warren Neidich which were published by Aperture in the book \\\"American History Reinvented\\\" and included in \\\"Photography\\\'s Antiquarian Avant Garde\\\" by Lyle Retter
1981-82 Printed the work of Laura Gilpin from her original negatives at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, TX


SOLO EXHIBITIONS
Elements of Containment - Photo Eye Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
1998 \\\"Mannufatto di Maternita\\\" Photo Eye Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
1994 \\\"New Work: Albumen Photographs\\\" Photo Eye Gallery, Santa Fe, NM

GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2003 \\\"Contemporary Art/Taos\\\" The Harwood Museum of Art of the University of New Mexico, Taos, NM
Inspirations and Interpretations\\\" White Room Gallery, West Hollywood, CA
2002 \\\"Contemporary Alternative Photography\\\" White Room Gallery, West Hollywood, CA
\\\"Sunworks\\\" Art Institute of Boston, Boston MA
\\\"Large Format Photography in New Mexico\\\" !Magnifico! Art Space, Albuquerque, NM sponsored by View Camera & Camera Art magazines
2000 \\\"New Mexico 2000\\\" Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, NM
1999 \\\"Four Photographers\\\" The Harwood Museum of Art of the University of New Mexico, Taos, NM

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
The Harwood Museum of Art of the University of New Mexico, Taos, NM
Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, NM
The Harry Ransom Center for the Humanities, University of Texas at Austin
The Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas

PUBLICATIONS
\\\"The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes\\\" by Christopher James
\\\"The Ansel Adams Guide Basic Techniques of Photography Book 2\\\" by John P. Schaefer
Photography\\\'s Antiquarian Avant Garde: The New Wave in Old Processes\\\" by Lyle Rexer
View Camera Magazine \\\"July/August 2002