DamnPhotoArtist-Commune

Girl In Glass

3/5/2020

The anthropological record is filled with societies who died off due to their inability to change with rapidly evolving conditions – rapidly evolving conditions in climate, viral, and societal forms. Art is illustrative.

Art was arguably relatively stable until the rise of modern art, including the Impressionists, in the late 1800’s. Society was already rapidly changing as the Industrial Revolution facilitated transportation and communications revolutions; economies were becoming global and ideas could be rapidly shared. The human ‘toolbox’ for conceiving and affecting the world grew from a handheld box to a factory-sized space with no walls. Established communities (audiences, critics, educators, aficionados) have taken years to ‘get it’.

Artists themselves are not immune; stuck on certain techniques, certain mediums. Stuck on things we’ve learned inside and out (often haven’t at all) and know how to control (and actually can’t). It’s understandable; a certain technique sells, and a new direction sits around collecting dust.

It’s worth suggesting that the lure to go off exploring new directions is what defines ‘Art’. Break away from the ‘old’. Evolve with conditions.

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

Girl In Glass

Leave a Reply.

Curtis Hendricks

Archives