Jeff Cowen: Photography

Jeff Cowen is interested in photography not as a technical means of archiving visual input, but rather for its artistic potential as a medium. From the outset, photography was characterized largely by its portrayal of reality in contrast to art-forms such as drawing, painting and sculpture. This documentary aspect of photography represents both its artistic potential and its creative limitation. Cowen, however, treats photography as a vehicle for painting, collage and sculpture — and thereby creates images that are radically different to the style dominant in photographic art. The artist uses the chemicals in his dark-room like a painter uses color, developing the compositions and allowing for processes outside his direct control. The pictures evolve over a period of weeks or months and the results are not pre-determined.