I find it very interesting in how one thing then relates to another, a kind of creative synthesis. While investigating the possible creative origins of my earlier Organic Abstract Expressionism photograph, I found out about the Light and Space movement from the 1980’s and then the somewhat current Process-Based Abstraction movement. Thus this article’s title as the Process-Based Abstraction movement was diversely labeled “Zombi Formalism” by the NYC art critic Jerry Saltz, as decorative without soul (my paraphrasing). So perhaps I have been doing some experimental/play with Zombie Photography, as in my earlier article I made the statement that “I really enjoy these images as well as the process to obtain these.”
A contemporary artist to think of in this regard is Jackson Pollock and his drip paintings back in the early 1950’s in which he reacted to what happen as he dripped and poured paint onto his canvas. He was not sure where he was going with the painting while allowing and experimenting with the process to guide him along the way.
If you think back, photography had its start as process-based (e.g. “mechanical process”), when during the early days the photographer was unsure of what the results might look like until the wet processing the glass plates. Only later in modern photography with the advent of the negative did pre-visualization become a reality in anticipating the look of the final print object. Today I think of the wet-plate and Collodion process of Sally Mann, where the artist/photographer is focusing on the process of interacting with her subject and what ultimately results is unique and only relatively anticipated.
The artistic concept behind Zombie Photography is about enjoying the process of the creating the images rather than a focus on the end product, the photographic print. Hopefully someone will find some value in the end product. To repeat what I had stated earlier: I was not looking thru the viewfinder when the exposure was made or viewing the immediate results that appeared on the back of digital camera, and in fact, I did not know what I had captured until some four hours or more later when I had returned to the studio and downloaded the digital files. My limitation in looking through the camera’s viewfinder was the environmental conditions in which I was working that precluded that ability. So as a friend said, it was just point and shoot, but a process that I was enjoying. And I think that there is no doubt that the photo is an abstract photograph. Nice.
For the image above, I am also concerned that at this point that this is a work in progress. More about that another day….
Cheers, stay healthy and safe my friends,
Doug
Featured artwork above: work in process (working title Creation #4211, TechnoSynthesis series) – copyright 2020 Douglas Stockdale
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Gardening For Ordnance solo on-line exhibition, Fabrik Projects on Artsy.net, March 24th – April 30th, 2020.
Los Angeles Center of Photography (LACP) Faculty Exhibition, in Los Angeles at the new LACP gallery, located at 566 Washington Blvd. The exhibition opens March 21st and the closing reception is Saturday, April, 18, 2020, from 7-10pm. TBD
Update! Medium Photo 2020 Workshop: Developing a Creative Book workshop that I will be leading, is now rescheduled for September 24 – 27th, 2020, a four-day extended weekend workshop in San Diego.
Medium Photo 2020 Lecture Series, I will be giving a one-evening lecture Artist Books as Art Objects on Friday, March 20th, from 7:30 – 9pm at the You Belong Here artist venue, located at 3619 El Cajon Blvd, San Diego, California 92104. TBD
Singular Images 