CAROL INEZ CHARNEY


ARTIST STATEMENT:

My current photographic series, Interior Landscape, uses natural distortions present in our everyday world- namely, moisture on windows- to evoke a painterly image that recontextualizes our everyday architectural landscape. While focusing on the minute details of these natural distortions, we enter a space of quiet contemplation, which simultaneously inspires a new kind of internal and external vision.

After several years of combining painting and photography with mixed results, one very cold day in Minnesota I looked through a window completely covered in condensation out into the frosty landscape. I realized I could use the camera to reinterpret the world around me into a form akin to that of painting. It was a paradigm shift for me in the way I saw all landscape from that point on; now I photograph contemporary architecture distilled down to a series of compositional planes. I then obscure this composition by rephotographing it through water-coated glass, thus juxtaposing painterly abstraction and photographic realism.

In a fraction of a second, the camera has the ability to capture unadulterated realism, while through the veil of a stream of water the selective focus of the camera's lens allows for the painterly abstraction to simultaneously exist. Transported to a contemplative state that becomes more profound each time we view the work, these Interior Landscapes become visual meditations. In this way, I'm simulating the experience of looking at a painting that is actually a photograph.

When looking at a painting, I'm drawn into the composition and given the opportunity: first, to explore the overall piece, and second, to further examine its details and materiality. It's during this second viewing, this deeper investigation, that the painting really pulls me in, and I begin to notice things I hadn't the first time around. This is where I begin my internal dialogue, and where I'm transported to a contemplative state that becomes more profound each time I view the work. It's like a visual meditation. This is the painterly experience I now create via photographic means in my Interior Landscape series.




All Images are Digital Chromogenic Prints Available in 20x20,” 30x30” and 40x40”
MKT1, Chromogenic Print Mounted on Aluminum, 2009
POT1, Chromogenic Print Mounted on Aluminum, 2008
YOK1, Chromogenic Print Mounted on Aluminum, 2008




Resume: Carol Inez Charney

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