DamnPhotoArtist-Commune

Future Past

4/30/2020

Subliminal haunting might be the context of this work. Other versions of one’s self looking over the shoulder of the present self, like separate personalities jealous of the spotlight. Or clingy memories reluctant to let go; mistakes that can only be rectified by being forgotten, and that refuse to be forgotten. Just face away from them.

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I’d originally intended to title this work ‘Guy With Portrait Of Another Guy’, which is really all it is. Nothing especially experimental about it; just a guy in a dark corner with a painting of a guy that looks a lot like him. Lighting and texturing to create a pleasant bit of art was all that seemed appropriate. As I thought about the imagery I thought this more poetic title was more appropriate. An example, I suppose, of the complexity of the subliminal surpassing the simplicity of the work itself.

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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.

DamnPhotoArtist

Future Past

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Curtis Hendricks

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