DamnPhotoArtist-Commune

Decision

6/7/2019

Life is an optical illusion. We see only a single visual spectrum. Our eyes take in at a glance virtually every detail available in that spectrum, then our brain restricts conscious recognition to only those details it deems important.

Art is an illusion of an illusion. A two-dimensional rendering of a three-dimensional vision cropped into manageable parameters. Tens of thousands of years passed between the first flat cave drawings and da Vinci’s first successful paintings depicting depth. Our minds buy it.

Abstract art is an illumination of emotional spectrums floating beneath the visual illusion. Our eyes take it in at a glance, but our brain may be unable to quickly apply restrictors enabling its classification. The entire work jumps into conscious recognition while the brain tries to decide what to do. It is forced to think.

Stare. See. Think.

Deep.

0 Comments

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.

DamnPhotoArtist

Decision

Leave a Reply.

Curtis Hendricks

Archives