When I was a very young boy, a well-known sculptor had his studio in an unused part of my parents’ garage for a few years. I remember the intrigue and mystery of seeing him at work, and I was fascinated by the materials, tools and smells. Later, my father worked there on his projects, as did others in the family. It engendered in me a deep curiosity for the atelier, the creative space that supports an artist in realizing their vision. I’ve been exploring those feelings recently with this series of portraits of artists in their creating environments, a privileged view behind the scenes that often reveals as much about the creator as do the works they produce there.
Two factors have changed the trajectory of this project since its inception in 2019. First, for a portrait photographer, the COVID epidemic was hugely impactful. My images require close, in-person collaboration, and as a blood cancer survivor, my immune system is not normal. Secondly, recent advances in imagery generated by artificial intelligence capabilities have raised unprecedented questions about artistic creativity and the definition of originality. My portraits are already exaggerated in perspective, scale and tonality. They are not intended as literal captures of a scene of the creator at work, but as allegorical in their portrayal of the artist in heroic light, with the environment and implements arrayed on display. They are laborious creations, and the prospect of them being interpreted as AI-generated or somehow other than a human-constructed scene has led to deep introspection about how to keep my vision true.
These images are carefully composed and arranged, unabashedly heavily manipulated, and illuminated with multiple lighting setups and exposures. But all parts of these portraits were captured in-camera, and no AI-based image generation, enhancement or manipulation is involved.
The Creative Spaces project will be on exhibit at The Edge Center for the Arts in Bigfork, Minnesota in October and November 2024. For more information, see edgecenterarts.org. Previously, the series was featured in an exhibit at The Phipps Center for the Arts in Hudson, Wisconsin, in the fall of 2019. Along with portraits of the artists, the exhibit presented a piece from each of them alongside the photograph. For more information, visit thephipps.org.
