DamnPhotoArtist-Commune

On Exhibit 10/19

9/25/2019

Drop off day for new exhibitions is a hoot. Each artist that comes in is like a mother bringing her baby in for a play date, each one like a spring ready to tell anyone available all about their new born and how it is the cutest baby in the joint, And that spring will be sprung at the slightest change in air pressure. At my recent drop there were roughly five of us standing around, all jabbering in our own little bubbles. I was right there with them, umbilical cord in full view.

At my favorite gallery the staff is truly interested in knowing everything they can about every work. They feel the backstory is important for being able to communicate the context of the work to potential buyers. But stuff is coming so fast and furious they’re bleary-eyed, bless their hearts, trying so heard to listen to everybody. It’s adorable, really, which I suppose is why it’s my favorite. Another gallery I use is so clinical trying to get everything checked in and cataloged, artists lined up in a queue, it’s like trying to talk to an accountant. Coincidentally, it’s the gallery I’ve been least successful at, so I suppose there’s a moral there.

Ninety-nine percent of my work exists only in the digital world. And I love posting a new work, don’t get me wrong. But to see that work in the analog, hanging large and lighted on the wall of a gallery, is always a thrill.

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For this exhibit I decided I wanted to give ‘Forest Mother’, which I’d previously done as a small 5”x7”, the full, framed treatment. The work generated fair attention as a small work; it’s been one of my favorites since I created it last fall and I have hopes for it, given that I live in a region in which factories have to shut down the first day of deer season due to absenteeism. ‘Chance’s Hand’ is a retitling of a work that’s been out there a few times – a number of people consider it their favorite of all my works – and ‘Ghost of Past Lives’ has also been well regarded.

For new viewers, once I’ve produced a work from at least 10”x14” it will never be reproduced again in that size. Ever. If I receive a request to produce the work again in a larger size the cost rises exponentially. The buyer can have confidence exclusivity of the work they’ve purchased.

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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

On Exhibit 10/19

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Curtis Hendricks

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