PISTOLWISH
"InkMasks, InkClouds and Water Dancers, 2014-2026"
AUGUST 6-29, 2026
DTLA ART NIGHT RECEPTION
THURSDAY AUGUST 6, 6-10pm
Artist's Statement
The work begins with a wish: to see what can only be imagined.
Everyone who steps in front of the camera is treated with reverence once reserved for gods and saints: light, patience, and the benefit of the doubt. This approach rests on a belief that if an ordinary person can be shown as worthy of close attention, then the way we see one another on an ordinary day is a choice rather than a fact. The elements in my work serve the same purpose. In Inkmasks and Ink Clouds, a figure remains still as ink flows through water; in Ephemeron, smoke moves around a body that could not hold that position for a moment longer. Solid, liquid, and gas coexist within a single frame, and in other series a single moment alludes to its past and future. None of this can be witnessed. All of it can be imagined, our last refuge for curiosity.
Complicated things are worth the trouble. Each layer is photographed, painted, or staged by hand, then merged according to a plan drawn before any of it exists. Some now ask whether these images are synthetic; they are not, although generative models have been trained on them. The significance lies in the process, because idealism cannot be applied at the end. It is settled at the beginning, in a room, with a person and a light.
Photography is changing faster than at any time since the portable film camera, and a world recording itself endlessly has made documentation effortless and perception rare. Imagination is worth defending now.
Selected works have been exhibited internationally, including at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), where a collaborative work remains in permanent installation, LACDA, Google, the Center for Fine Art Photography, Newspace Center for Photography, New Century Artists Gallery, the New York Center for Photographic Art, Site 109, Soho Gallery for Digital Art, Holcim Gallery, Giorgi Gallery, and in private collections.
The International Photography Awards and the Lucie Awards Foundation named the work Photographer of the Year in 2015 for Inkmasks and again in 2017 for Machined Light & Motion. The work also earned Best in Show and first place in Fashion that year, first place in 2018 for A Cold Light of Mourning, and Photographer of the Year for Moving Pictures at the 2017 Lucie Awards at Carnegie Hall, with further recognition for PIXÉLISÉ in 2019, Ink Clouds in 2021, and Unspoken in 2024. As of August 2026, the IPA ranks the work seventh among more than nine thousand artists and photographers worldwide.
.
This site and its entire contents © 2004-2026 Los Angeles Center For Digital Art
All Rights Reserved.Works of individual artists remain the intellectual property and are copyrighted by their respective authors. No unauthorized reproduction, all rights reserved.
|
|
