The next step

I have worked from the live nude periodically since the early 1970's. This blog started August 9th, 2012 in my second year of working almost exclusively from the figure.

In the fall of 2015 I reintroduced still lifes and an occasional cityscape into my painting repertoire. Rather than abandon this figure blog or start a new one I decided to add them to the conservation.

All drawings and paintings posted on this blog were done entirely from live models or on location.

Saturday, April 16, 2016

Canabalism

I have no business dealing with figurative art photography in this blog. I am not well versed on the subject but feel the urge to comment after my recent visit to a Smithsonian contemporary portraiture exhibition. About half of the show was photography. My main takeaway, at least for this venue, was that advanced digital photo devises are suffocating and consuming fine art photography. This digital assault is different from the one being waged on photo sourced drawings and paintings but the result is the same - the life is being sucked out of the art form.

Dan McCormack, Tricia_P-01-10-16--13AB
Pinhole camera-digital pigment print, 18" X 24"


How can clear and flawless images created using the most advanced technologies fail as fine art? The answer may lie in the question. Just days after visiting the portrait show I came across the above pinhole camera photo in a small local venue. It evokes an emotion beyond just the subject matter. Somehow its low tech origin allows the image to resonate.

William Eggleston, dye-transfer print
21 5/8" X 14 5/8", 1970
The Metropolitan Museum of Art

William Eggleston was a pioneer in fine art color photography. His images, at least in part by virtue of their relatively primitive processes, now stand as icons of the genre.


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