PHOTOGRAPHY SERIES: LOSS AND LONGING

I am experimenting with the visual imagery of loss and longing; a loss of life or memories and a pervasive sense of Fernweh. An attraction to abandoned buildings and empty spaces led me to photograph them in black and white film, which I believe draws the viewer into nostalgic recollection.

(read more…)

Decaying man-made structures speak to me as tangible representations of abandonment and memory. Even though the particular building and its story are unknown to the viewer, the image is transcendent and can trigger personal reminiscences and loosely related associations. These abandoned human structures solicit a narrative the viewer cannot help but imagine. These narratives are supplied by one’s own experience, generative imagination and memory. In supplying the story, however unconsciously, unfulfilled desires and past longings resurface.

I easily personify buildings. Houses are wombs for growth, change, and rites of passage. They seem to be alive, with eyes that see and ears that hear. Lonely buildings stir in me a sense of wistfulness, since someone built the structure for a purpose, for which it is no longer needed.

Empty open spaces have obvious connotations of loneliness, abandonment or loss. They are a void, either where something was or could be. The beauty of nature heightens my emotions, and an ambiguous sense of longing overwhelms me. Suddenly I am very small, or very alone. And something outside of me is very beautiful and very great. I am unsure how to feel, other than pining for something that was, or is, or will be. Again, this imagery produces obscure emotions that flood my senses, even as I struggle to decipher where they came from.

WANDERLUST AND TRAVEL

Wanderlust is incurable; I'm homesick for somewhere I've never been. I desire to explore and to discover. Yet with every trip, I find myself pining for more. With every journey, my soul expands. Yet this expanse is never filled: as the capacity grows, so too the longing.

(read more…)

This expanding of the soul comes with an awareness of an inborn desire for a true home, the realization of which I have not yet found on this earth. And so this long pursuit, this pilgrimage made by every man, this sweet homesickness calling me somewhere I have not yet found.

In traveling, I search the earth, discovering new people, colors, truth, ways of life, myself. When I later paint my photographs, I travel again, both in memory and in imagination. Remembering and yearning are intrinsically linked. In our memories, however clinical we recall them, surface our own longings, and in our future imagining, we can’t help but reflect memories.

I intend my paintings to make people feel closer to home, even as they are being taken away on an adventure. I want them to catch a glimpse of a new place; to travel somewhere they've never been. I want to bring people out of their current reality: to feel the light, smell the air, and feel connected, as if they had been there themselves. I want the viewer to imagine and yet to remember. Saint Augustine wrote, “the world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” I want to translate these unread pages on my canvases, inviting viewers to read a visual transliteration of the world’s book.

A FLASHBACK OF SOMETHING THAT NEVER EXISTED

My art is inspired by my travels and experiences. In a sense, “I had a flashback of something that never existed” (Louise Bourgeois).

(read more…)

As soon as a moment has passed, that world exists only in memory and in photographs. We are in fact remembering people and events that no longer exist. They are no longer current reality. These memories that now constitute that previous reality are susceptible to exaggeration, extension, alteration and decay.

And memories, fleeting and morphing phenomena that they are, will also inevitably blend with our own longings and fantasies, and then the two are nearly impossible to separate. We sometimes say that every person interprets their reality through their own “lens.” These mingled yearnings, experiences, dreams and memories constitute my unique lens.

NOSTALGIA AND FERNWEH

What I describe as a remembering-longing/future-yearning is partly encompassed within the terms nostalgia and the German word Fernweh. Nostalgia is an ache of memory, an intangible and bittersweet human experience. It is sadness over loss of home and past, but yet this loss is never total, since our memories serve to keep this world (albeit an altered version) alive in our act of remembering. Nostalgia can simultaneously be a reassuring, comforting occurrence, bringing a distant hope and foreboding of pleasures to be (re)gained.

(read more…)

Fernweh (German literally translated as far-ache or far-away-longing) expresses the reverse of and yet is a persistent companion to nostalgia (that home-ache or homecoming-pain). Fernweh, like nostalgia, can be both an inner anguish and exhilaration. One does not preclude the other, and this bi-polar experience can overcome us through commonplace objects like photographs, smells, songs or storybooks.

We can in fact experience a forward-nostalgia for what we have not yet physically observed, because our search for homecoming itself lands us in memories and constructed realities, which in turn redirect us to our longing for a place not yet known, and most probably, not here in our three-dimensional plane.

How to better express this bittersweet synthesis of nostalgia and Fernweh than C.S. Lewis in his essay, “The Weight of Glory:”

“In speaking of this desire for our own far-off country, which we find in ourselves now, I feel a certain shyness, I am almost committing an indecency, I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you – the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both.

We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name. Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter. Wordsworth’s expedient was to identify it with certain moments in his own past. But all this is a cheat. If Wordsworth had gone back to those moments in the past, he would not have found the thing itself, but only the reminder of it; what he remembered would turn out to be itself a remembering.

The books or music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not them, it only came through them, and what came through them was the longing. These things – the beauty, the memory of our own past – are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself, they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not yet heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”

COLOR DIALOGUE: CALL AND RESPONSE

When I begin to paint an image, whether my own or another’s, a dialogue takes place. Hours of studying the same image leads the mind to remember details, to mark the patterns and shapes, and to notice subtle colors unseen at first glance. In this process of examination, the image becomes brighter and more alive to me. I never see the photograph in the same way I did before.

(read more…)

It is as if in considering it, I allow more sunlight to seep into the image, and in one image, I find thousands of nuanced colors. I am intrigued by how light brings out these subtle variations. A relationship forms. I begin to mix colors on my palette, and the color options continue to grow over the course of the painting, as I notice more.

This process reminds me of what’s referred to as “call and response” in music: a first phrase is played by one musician or instrument, followed by a second phrase from another source, which is a response to or a commentary on the first.

The photograph plays its “call” of color, light and shape, and I respond. It shows me a color, and I respond by imitating this call (sketching forms, recognizing and playing variations of the colors on my canvas). I am not merely repeating the image, but rather adding my own perceived details. I might find more of one color, or be more attracted to one aspect of the image, and seek to highlight it. I might alter the color I see to be darker or lighter or to be an entirely other color as I see fit. While my reply, by nature of being a reply, is initiated by the call, it is not merely an echo, but a meditated response.

Another study of the image, and more calls are “heard” to which I respond. This dialogue, rather like a jam session or a dancing couple, continues throughout the painting progress.

Taza, Morocco; Cape Town, South Africa; Sahara, Morocco; Mauna Kea, Hawaii, USA

United Arab Emirates; Death Valley National Park, California, USA; Yosemite National Park, California, USA; Highway 1, California, USA

Fatihpur Sikri, India; Highway 1, California, USA; Rome, Italy; Cape Agulhas, South Africa

​​My paintings reflect yearnings and memories; 
they recall the inner longing for something we have not yet experienced,
but somehow still know, ​as if remembering something which is yet to happen.

This is "the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both.
 We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience.
We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it,
and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name.
Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter." 1 

My paintings meditate on this beauty we find in our world:
both in its raw glory and yet deep unfulfillment.
​I want viewers to catch a glimpse of a new place; to travel somewhere they've never been; 
to feel the light, ​smell the air, and feel connected, ​as if they were there themselves.​
"These things – the beauty, the memory of our own past – ... are not the thing itself;
they are only the scent of a flower we have not found,
​the echo of a tune we have not yet heard,
news from a country we have never yet visited." 2

My work is narrative, and the viewer is invited into the story:
I hope that each painting will become like a favorite book, 
which can be viewed and enjoyed repeatedly, each time revealing new details.

I am exploring themes of travel, narrative, memory, loss and longing.
Different series of works highlight these topics, although most of the themes cross over, reflect and repeat.
​The process of my painting (call and response) is an integral part of the finished pieces.
Below are several short texts to help in understanding the purposes, processes, themes and functions of my work.
.
.
​.

wanderlust: TRAVEL IN ART. ART IN TRAVEL.

Wanderlust is incurable; I'm homesick for somewhere I've never been. I love to travel, and when exploring a new place, I'm often snapping photos, thinking, "oh what a good painting!"

​I intend my paintings to make people feel at home, even as they are being taken away on an adventure. I want them to catch a glimpse of a new place; to travel somewhere they've never been. I want to bring people out of their current reality; to feel the light, smell the air, and feel connected, as if they had been there themselves.

A flashback of something that never existed

Much of my art is inspired by my own travels, and the paintings are based on my own photographs. When I paint one of my own photos, dozens of memories (both conscious and unconscious) return to me. These memories and emotions affect my interpretation of the image and influence the outcome of the painting. While the painting is primarily based on unbiased photographic evidence, the rendering is supplemented by my own subjective memories, thereby creating an alternate reality – in a sense, “I had a flashback of something that never existed” (Louise Bourgeois).

​COLOR DIALOGUE: ​CALL AND RESPONSE (process)

​When I begin to paint an image, whether my photo or another’s, a dialogue takes place. Hours of studying the same image leads the mind to remember details, to mark the patterns and shapes, and to notice subtle colors unseen at first glance. In this process of examination, the image becomes brighter and more alive to me. I no longer ever see the photograph in the same way as before.
 
It is as if in considering it, I allowed more sunlight to seep into the image, and in one image, I find thousands of nuanced colors. I am intrigued by how light brings out these subtle variations. A relationship forms. I begin to mix colors on my palette, and the color options continue to grow over the course of the painting, as I notice more. 
​
This process of dialoging with the image reminds me of what’s referred to as “call and response” in music: a first phrase is played by one musician or instrument, followed by a second phrase from another source, which is a response to or a commentary on the first. 
 
The photograph plays its “call” of color, light and shape, and I respond. It shows me a color, and I respond by imitating this call (sketching forms, recognizing and playing variations of the colors on my canvas). I am not merely repeating the image, but rather adding my own perceived details. I might find more of one color, or be more attracted to one aspect of the image, and seek to highlight it. I might alter the color I see to be darker or lighter or to be an entirely other color as I see fit. While my reply, by nature of being a reply, is initiated by the call, it is not merely an echo, but a meditated response.

​NARRATIVE PAINTINGS (READING A STORYBOOK)

My work is narrative. Each image is a still-life snapshot from a real-life motion picture. In capturing this specific moment, I invite the viewer into the story. Just like reading a book, each viewer will bring their own experiences to interpret the painting.
 
My paintings are made to communicate emotion and they meditate on the beauty found in our world: both the raw glory of nature and the dark brokenness of our world. In order to see beauty, there must be a contrast. One must know darkness in order to appreciate light. One must know pain to fully experience love.
 
In the majority of my work, I seek to find balance and harmony within the elements. Each piece is initially framed through the lens of a camera, at which point I set up the composition. I intend the paintings to be engaging, harmonious, and leading to a sense of well-being.
 
All the formal elements of art are at play in my work, with my attention particularly attune to texture, perspective, light and composition.

My hope is that each painting will become like a favorite storybook, which can be read and enjoyed repeatedly, each time discovering a new detail. Every time, the reader brings the lens of their own new experiences to the book, and thereby they find something new in the familiar story.
 
I hope that my paintings can be continually revisited, just like a storybook that can be read and lived over and over: with each view, a new detail or character will be discovered.

PHOTOGRAPHY: LOSS AND LONGING

​I am experimenting with the visual imagery of loss and longing; a loss of life or memories and a pervasive sense of abandonment. I think the medium of black and white photography complements forlorn subject matter and is conducive to vague reminiscence. I am attracted to imagery of abandoned buildings, dead animals (particularly road kill), and pastoral empty spaces.
 
Decaying man-made structures speak to me as tangible representations of abandonment. A fear of abandonment is rooted deep, and these subtle images draw out this dormant emotion. Even though this particular building and its story are unknown to the viewer, the image is transcendent and can trigger nebulous memories and associations. Abandoned human structures beg for a narrative that a viewer cannot help but imagine. These narratives are supplied by one’s own experience, one’s own generative imagination and memory. In supplying the story, however unconsciously, unfulfilled desires and past longings resurface.
 
Buildings, by their innate association with humans, for me are easily personified. Houses are wombs for growth, change, and rites of passage. They seem to be alive, with eyes that see and ears that hear.  The lonely buildings stir in me a sense of wistfulness, since someone built the structure for a purpose, for which it is no longer needed. They have been forsaken.

Empty open spaces have obvious connotations of loneliness, abandonment or loss. They are a void, either where something was or could be. The beauty of nature heightens my emotions, and an ambiguous sense of longing overwhelms me. Suddenly I am very small, or very alone. And something outside of me is very beautiful and very great. And I am not sure how to feel, other than pining for something that was, or is, or will be. Again, this imagery produces obscure emotions that flood my senses, even as I struggle to decipher where they came from.

PHOTOGRAPHY: INGLORIOUS (DEATH)

​I am continually fascinated by road kill, and ultimately by peoples’ interactions with unglorified images of death. I am sure much of this ties into my interest in war history and various cultural rites of passage surrounding death throughout history. In modern American society, it is safe to say that a majority have little framework for death up close and personal. Death happens behind closed doors or on television. It seems to me that we see actual death most often with animals, and frequently in the form of road kill.
 
Normally there is an amount of reverence to the abstract notion of death.  When it is grotesquely laid out before us, there is repulsion, albeit sometimes accompanied by curiosity. I wonder if this would also happen also if the carcass were human? I can only speculate. Had we encountered a death in another context, we may have experienced emotions of sadness or sympathy. But since road kill is something gross and banal and we had no prior connection with the living creature, we merely look away or don’t even notice at all. The dead are no longer endowed with any dignity, burial or respect. It is just meat. They are abandoned.
 
All that being said, it is also interesting to me that frequently, we fail to make an actual connection between the flesh spread on the road and the loss of life, since it is so commonplace anyway. Had the animal been living, many people might feel some harmonious emotion and gain enjoyment by its presence.  Watching deer and birds is calming pastime for many, and cats and dogs are frequently our closest companions. However, upon being smushed (by a human), the animal is immediately reduced to a source of disgust, or merely an inconvenience to avoid viewing or hitting again.

Wesel, Germany; Cape Town, South Africa; Bangkok, Thailand; Prague, Czech

Tucson, Arizona, USA; Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Canary Islands; Nelspruit, South Africa; Lanikai Beach, Hawaii, USA

Cario, Egypt; Transylvanian Alps, Romania; Paris, France; UAE

Fes, Morocco; Las Palmas de Gran Canarias, Canary Islands; Paris, France; Bryce Canyon, USA