Sweet Reign

Working widely across painting, drawing and collage processes this series of constructed abstract photographs evokes Abstract Expressionism and Neo-Graffiti with a hint of playful Surrealism while extracting high and lowbrow miens aimed at the embryonic human center. Each image is of discarded ephemera . Thus they survey a subject whose visual persona transcends its socially coerced repute and reflects upon humanities consumer-centric existence while articulating aesthetic and critical engagement with the non-material aspects of the subject … revealing its unrealized potential as a source of exploration and inspiration for profound artistic and intellectual engagement. Working with found ephemera enables me to suspend the viewer between imagination and reality thereby suggesting the unseen: those elemental phenomena we live by like vim, verve and oomph. Further, the photographs invite the viewer to explore their own inner world of mystical experiences. Does ephemera gain meaning as morphed documents of aesthetic value? How does the dialogue around its photographed identity enlighten our perception and valuation of it as nuclei for artistic exploration? As you view these images ponder if they change your thoughts about the potential of ephemera? Study how its transformed identity relates to your perception and valuation of it as a subject for photographic exploration? When I saw these bits and pieces of ephemera on my studio work table their disparate shapes were held together by light passing through and around them. The aesthetic elegance generated by that initial chaos ignited my visual cortex, sent a shot of adrenalin through my veins and I instinctively reached for my camera. I photographed the setting then shuffled the objects to see if the effect held in a new arrangement. It did, so I photographed them again and repeated that process several times … then in the computer I inverted the colors of each image ending with a Series that far exceeds its modest origins.