I have been taking photographs for as long as I’ve been painting. Recently I began manipulating and refining my photographs with the help of a computer. Compositing photos allows me to make images I could never get otherwise. I use film and digital cameras, and a flatbed and film scanner. Making these images while looking at the computer screen seems to be an almost totally cerebral experience for me (while making my paintings satisfies my need for the physical, tactile qualities of paint).
My digital photo-montage images relate to my paintings somewhat but the two are basically separate bodies of work, separate directions. The only given in my digital work is the images from my photographs, which I cut apart and assemble in Adobe Photoshop. The images are sometimes rendered in part in other programs as well, such as Painter, and they take me a long time to complete: weeks, sometimes months. I have been trying to make them seamless (a very time-consuming process), but not always, or not totally. Occasionally I try to make the image into more obviously a collage, where the edges of the fragments reveal their being pieced together. The prints I make from them are the only proof that these electronic images on the computer screen ever existed. Making successful and accurate prints is another challenge, a goal in itself.
I recently began to incorporate parts of some of my drawings and paintings into these photographic images for adding textures, supplemental forms and backgrounds. Perhaps sometime in the near future the two directions will converge, conceptually and stylistically.
These are Limited edition ink-jet prints available in editions of a fixed number, which may vary from picture to picture. They are usually available in editions of 20. A few artist’s proofs are also available. These digital prints are not reproductions of my paintings.
All prints are made with archival inks and paper.