DamnPhotoArtist-Commune

The Awareness Of Being

5/30/2019

There is a marketing undertow towards specialization. Commercially successful artists tend to be known for a particular genre of media and subject. Oh yes, So-In-So can be counted on for doing Such-And-Such. Perhaps this be one of my flaws.

It was actually pointed out as such during an exhibition not long ago, that all my work seemed different if nonetheless following a similar style. A collection of my work being too diffuse – no single focus – no specialization.

As much as I love working with macros and with florals, if that were all I did I would get bored really fast (though such boredom might pay the mortgage). Constant repetition of the same work has no appeal for me; the attraction lay in the diversity of creation. An exploration of variation and alternate vision. Each work – each leaf – its own universe.

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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

The Awareness Of Being

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Curtis Hendricks

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