Date of Submission

Spring 2013

Academic Program

Photography

Project Advisor 1

John Pilson

Abstract/Artist's Statement

Artist Statement

I am interested in the way photography looks. I am not interested in emotion. I am very much invested in the power of color in photography. My work exists somewhere between documentary photography and tableau photography.

I like to consider the contested relationship between color photography and painting, especially in the context of my own work. Rather than study other photographers to gain inspiration for my portraiture I have studied early modernist painters such as Henri Matisse and other "Fauvists." These artists placed a great deal of emphasis on the importance of color; the name "Fauve" refers to using color violently, like little beasts. Matisse writes about trying to replicate a color he experiences visually using a paintbrush; he always seems to fail to recreate this experience.

Like these painters I am also interested in creating a visual experience through the use of strong, violent color. I believe that photographs should only be made in color if they cannot be made in black and white. I hope that I can accurately recreate my vision of a color-driven portrait through photography.

I use my friends as models to make "studies" of color in photography. In a sense my work is a group of photographic experiments. I hope that what my work lacks in complexity, it makes up for in detail and attentiveness.

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