Title: Bush River Estuary Artist: Robert Carlson Medium: Digital Photography Size: Height x Width: 16" x 20" All prints are matted in white and framed in black aluminum frame with plixiglass glazing. Click on IMAGE for larger viewArtist’s Statement: From the first day that I became mobile and left home to find a place in the world, my fascination with the image has been my constant companion. Back roads, rivers and the cityscape all have their part in the landscape of my mind. Through the lens of my camera these images find their way out of that cluttered darkroom into the world of light so that others may see those colors and shadows, the forms and textures. Throughout the years, themes have developed that categorize the work that I do. Bridges, for their angles, shadows and graceful disrespect for gravity, form a sizable part of the gallery that forms inside my mind. Rusty railroad trestles, sleek cable suspension span or grand masonry arches all make our universe a bit more navigable. Roofs. The essential element in every shelter can be bland and perfunctory or ornate to the grandest extend over a football stadium or a cathedral. Each roof has its own character and expresses the emotions (or lack of) of the designer. Anything that is falling down. The impermanence of Man’s designs is nowhere better depicted than in the pile of debris that was once a useful structure. There is beauty in the graceful and grotesque. My eye sees both extremes as parts of the same continuum. Every structure has a beginning, a middle and an end. One can see all three temporal stages in the moment that is captured then flees. Street Coins. The most recent of my themes. There is something mysteriously appealing about manhole covers seemingly strewn around the ground like coins in the street. Fascination with these heavy, iron, highly textural objects imbedded in our streets and sidewalks surpasses the limits of our cultural boundaries. Artists, Engineers and casual observers like us the world over, all seem taken with these metal portals to a hidden universe of pipes and circuitry. By this theme I implore you to "Look Down - a different perspective. It is at your feet that these ubiquitous metal disks dot the streetscape and give mute testimony to the life processes that lie just beneath the surface. Without the utilities that are marked by their presence, our civilization could not exist. They represent a major part of what distinguishes Western Culture from the Third World. Without the potable water, gas and electric, telecommunications, steam, storm drains and sewers that they represent, we could not have cities that are clean and free of the diseases that have plagued mankind through the centuries." |