The ORCHID REQUIEM series won the Silver Prize for Art and Science of Color in Kyoto, 2003. The jury of international scholars understood the message and saw Eros in those dead orchids. These subjects, many as portraits, are anthropomorphized and provide an illusion of emotions and actions very like us.
Within the realm of flora - and fauna - I used dead orchids, cobweb denizens and lately the double bell Brugmansia or Angel's Trumpet flowers for the unusual seemingly animated intriguing and abstract properties of all. The Angels Trumpet group was inspired by the gift of a tiny brugmansia plant, now a tree. They have a unique strange and exotic way of unfolding, twisting, curling and often appearing as if more fauna than flora. They are fleshy and poisonous, always surprising, no two exactly alike.
NAKED LUNCH is a series that evolved from ORCHID REQUIEM employing dead insects especially the ubiquitous Crane Fly that many believe eat mosquitoes. In fact they may eat nothing at all in their very brief flying stage of life and only emerge from their cocoons to have sex and procreate. The translucency of their wings and structures inspired the same treatment as the orchids whose structures also revealed an intricacy and beauty that was compelling.
In much of my work I am interested in depicting Nature, how we are interrelated and connected. With our kin I still look for that anomaly and surprise that begs a question and hopefully inspires an emotional effect. All images originate in color but many can be presented in monochrome.
What drew me to photography in art school in the early 70s - when they did not include it in the curriculum - was whatever I captured in the camera was real and was ‘there’. Later adding alterations and other artistic methods for my aesthetic purposes that factor is still extant. It was there before my eyes and caught my attention and could suggest a story, with that element of truth of having been seen not invented. Imagination is still a part of it all but the base is a living or formerly living being.
