Long fascinated by the play of color, shape and pattern, this body of work, Black Light/White Light: +-, is a study of opposites and their values and their effect on the viewer.
Through my process, I take simple objects that have a lyrical quality, isolate them on a clean “white” field, illuminate them with a clean “white” light and capture them into a digital file. These images are then “inverted” so that the objects, originally illuminated by a clean “white” light, are now lit by a clean “black” light. In using this process, the value of the object itself becomes something stranger and more surreal than it was in its natural state. The object’s new tones and colors, although seemingly accidental and random, are in fact deliberately manipulated and assigned by me during the process.
My position is that the black central void becomes a vortex within which the composition revolves. The shadow areas that were originally recessive and subordinate are now dominant and speaking with a newfound voice of importance. The subject matter—the play of forms -- the contrasting tones and colors as well as the textures and patterns -- is intended to be on one level disturbing, on another balanced, while enticing the viewer to look deeper into the image. In essence, my goal is that the viewer is “sucked” into the image and becomes engaged in the subject, eliciting an emotional response to the work that is, hopefully, unexpected. This synesthesia, the belief that colors, shapes and forms have an emotional resonance and can transport the viewer to a different realm, is the central theme of and energy behind this body of work.