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Curtis Hendricks

DamnPhotoArtist

Photo Art* & Small Literature**
* Computer-based art that uses a photograph as a base
** Short Prose

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Ace Of Wands

12/31/2018

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We end the year with, perhaps, the best of the year. Arguably one of the best ever. 'Ace Of Wands' was created at the request of a local gallery that asked all its artists to compose a work based on a deck of the Tarot. The imaginary nature of the subject forced a completely different approach for me. I never add objects to a photographic capture - I work, 99% of the time, with single capture, and simply bend and filter the light to create art. And I only use my own photographs - that's part of the contract I keep with the viewer. It's my creation, start to finish. But the fantasy of the Tarot would be difficult to create in a single capture, or at least difficult to create in a way that would not seem wholly convoluted to me. Each of the elements of the card, however, could be photographed. 'Ace Of Wands' was created using five of my photographs. I already had the perfect sky, the perfect castle, the perfect branch. Each would require a certain amount of cropping and masking and filtering unique to it. The hand is actually my son's hand holding a 2x2, again filtered as appropriate to the complete work. The eyes were taken from another photograph in my portfolio - they actually go beyond the Tarot, but I wanted them for the mystical effect they added. The end result has been very well received and regarded by a few as the best work I've ever done.

I don't know that I would go quite that far, but it's certainly a work I'm proud of. It led me in new directions and let me explore new techniques that are bound to resurface. This was another crazy year for me both artistically and personally, and as I look back, this is the work that most stands out.
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    Curtis Hendricks

    All my life I have had to learn to do things differently. To see the world differently.

    Art attracted me from the beginning. Almost every home in the tiny farming village where I grew up had DaVinci’s ‘Last Supper’ on the wall. I would come across modern abstract art in magazines and be absolutely fascinated by the colors and techniques.

    But there were no artists in my village. No one understood what modern art was. Or why it was. But there was an appreciation for photography.

    I began shooting with a 1960 model Agfa rangefinder fixed-lens 35mm camera and learned to use darkroom techniques to finish my work. Graduating to a single lens reflex camera I worked primarily with Kodachrome. Digital photography opened a new world. The computer became the artboard I never had; the darkroom I could never afford. I discovered there would never be a camera or a lens that could capture what I saw in my head – that, I had to learn to create on my own.

    I use the photograph the same way a painter uses a charcoal sketch – as a starting place. I squeeze out the unseen hiding between the pixels; the angels, the demons of my own imagination.

    ​Light. Color. Darkness. Perspective. Introversion. Mystery. Love.

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