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Recently I have begun to work with digital photogaphy as a medium of its own, not just in support of painting. This tentative series of experiments have yielded some exciting and enjoyable images. The work on these images is a whole new direction, yet I have been reluctant to bring them to the public eye. However, recently I have been part of a group show (a benefit for the Monhegan Artist's Residency) and this is the first time any of these images have been seen outside of Cyber-space. Previously I veiled them under a pseudonym, and called the reulting images photopaintings, for lack of a better name. I love the saturated colors and warm diffusion, something I never was able to get to in my painting. I like them, and I'm having fun for the first time in a while!
So please let me introduce my alter ego, Corvis White (story to come about the genesis of this name). Go to his site- www.corviswhite.com -he's a good friend. He will treat you well!
In the past I have somewhat jokingly referred to my work as neo-luminism. Recently I have been revisting that term. I would like to make it stick.
Luminism in the 19th century had at its core the idea of the landscape imbued with light; the spiritual. It often made an attempt to place man within the landscpe, sometimes in a self conscious and ham-fisted way (for example, with a couple tiny figures sitting in the corner of a a spectacular scene, smoking a pipe). It's as if by placing the people there, the artist was reassuring the viewer that, yes, it's wild, but we have things under control...see, here are some PEOPLE!
In calling up the term neo-luminism I am acknowledging my debt to my predecessors of the 19th century; acknowledging the draw of the spirit on man within the landscape. But I ask for the presence of man to be implicit with the presence of the viewer.
We have gone to all the wild places, and have "tamed" them. Our judeo-christian heritage, with its insistence on our placement at the top of the ladder of evolution has allowed us to think ourselves as separate from nature.
I suggest that we are in the process of growing up in terms of our relationship with our environment. We have come to a new sense of our connectedness. That connectedness is directly related to our ability to outgrow this notion of "separateness" from nature.
Much of my work eschews spectacular scenery. It doesn't make constant reference to man and his works. It is about finding the spiritual in the distillation of simple, unspectacular scenes. Put simply: what you see and feel here is what you get. And if what you get is a yearning for a deeper connection with nature and spirit, then you share with me the thing that keeps me painting.
Phil Poirier 2006 |
