The Digital Era
Artistic expression is a vehicle which enables us to explore our human
nature in powerful ways. It offers us the opportunity to know ourselves
better and to share the deepest parts of our being with others. Over
the course of history the tools and mediums available to express
ourselves artistically have become more and more sophisticated. For
example, the tools for painting have progressed from simple berries and
rock to more vivid mediums such as acrylics and canvas. And the
techniques we have developed over time have enabled us to express
our visions in ways we would have never dreamed possible in the past.
Digital technology offers another important advance in our ability to
express ourselves creatively. While the digital medium will never replace
the brilliance of paint on canvas or the organic perfection that occurs
when a bow is drawn across a string in just the right way, it does offer
something that those things cannot. It offers unique and powerful ways
of manifesting aspects of the imagination that were inconceivable only a
generation ago.
I am excited to be a part of this new era of artistic expression. It is an
era that weds science and technology with the essence and drive of
artistic expression that has moved through the hearts of human beings
ever since the first hieroglyphs were created.
Light
According to basic physics as an object or person moves faster time
begins to move slower. As speed increases time slows down. Light
travels at an incredibly fast speed and it is at the speed of light that time
comes to a halt. There is no passage of time at the speed of light.
Because of this an object or person traveling at the speed of light exists
everywhere in the universe simultaneously because there is no time to
create limits. Pure light embodies the totality of being. It is timeless and
eternal. Given such characteristics it is no surprise that at the core of
all mystical traditions clear, white, radiant light holds powerful
significance.
Clear light is formless. White light contains all the colors of the
spectrum within its shine. As light begins the process of involution
(separation from its timeless, formless, infinite, original state) it
gradually differentiates itself into an array of distinctive qualities. The
first of these qualities is color. The subtle shades of color divide white
light into separate elements. Through the process of involution
differentiation continues bringing texture and boundaries and form.
According to the great wisdom traditions of the world it is this process of
involution or separating from the whole that has created the world as we
know it. My work is a celebration of this process of involution and a
celebration of that timeless, formless clear light that is at the core of our
existence.
My Approach
At the foundation of most of my work are digital photographs of different
sources of light. I use these light photos to paint and sculpt many of my
pieces. The images that I create purely from the light photos I call Light
Portraits and Light Sculptures. The Light Portraits are relatively
unadulterated photos I have taken, often with long and multiple
exposures while the Light Sculptures utilize the same basic light photos
but with more manipulations within the digital medium. For many of my
images I incorporate the light painting and light sculpture techniques
with images of form and texture that I have photographed. I refer to
these images as Essence Portraits because what I am trying to do is to
blend the light and form in a way that somehow captures the
luminescent essence that I believe lies within all the things of the
material world.
The process of creating these images is my meditation and prayer. It is
my way of looking beyond individuality and embracing the essence of
light that resides within every single thing that exists in the world. In
Hindu there is the greeting “Namaste” which loosely translated means
the light in me bows to the light in you. It is that light in you and I which I
strive to embrace in my creative efforts as well as in my life in general.
It is that light which is at the core of my work. I hope you find that light in
everything you see and everything you do.
Jeff
