I decided to start up this secton of my website again to discuss my latest work. I still post a daily photo at sayermotterphotography.weebly.com, This site will be for further explanation of my personal work.
I've never really delved into surrealistic imagery. I was influenced(and still am) by a former professor Enrico Pinardi who comes from the Metaphysical school of painting--which is an off-shoot of surrealism. This image above came from my thinking about Enrico lately and started out simply as a pice where I photographed boxes. I've been working with this idea of boxes --they are containers, cells(not like confinement cells, but cells that hold things or are spaces like a room, or a hive---not necessarily a bad space). Within these boxes we hld our lives--sometimes literally with old photos and trinkets etc... I was thinking a while ago about how as we get older we have a lot more boxes. So in working through this one piece thinking about Enrico(we called him Henry) I saw this road for some reason and felt a need to put the three boxes above this road. Its not a finished piece, but it led me to this piece and I've sort of been consumed by this in my free time. In thinking about Henry I also remembered his drawing of three nails. This drawing back when I was learning to draw was very important to me. I found myself using the nails to support things like fruit to a wall(long story, but I drew endlessly fruit nailed to my studio wall back then).
Then I had a brief discussion with a student of mine who was using money in one of his pieces and I asked 'ever try to drive a nail through a penny?' So felt a need to try it myself fearing it might be somewhat dangerous! I drove through fairly easy actually. I had been photographing this one banana peel and I drove the nail through the penny on the same board and suddenly had new wrinkle on that piece. When I made the piece with the boxes and the road I played around with decorative borders and the next thing I saw was this banana peel becoming a figure on the road. My mind began spinning with how I felt this became symbols for many many things. I then created this sort of parade of them, perhaps a platoon, perhaps just past memories. I tried to even put myself in the composition but felt ultimately that I wasn't needed.
I think the road imagery might be a bit cliche' and over used, but its something that led to one thing and then another and I've got this whole idea working out now that may or may not go somewhere. We'll see.
I've never really delved into surrealistic imagery. I was influenced(and still am) by a former professor Enrico Pinardi who comes from the Metaphysical school of painting--which is an off-shoot of surrealism. This image above came from my thinking about Enrico lately and started out simply as a pice where I photographed boxes. I've been working with this idea of boxes --they are containers, cells(not like confinement cells, but cells that hold things or are spaces like a room, or a hive---not necessarily a bad space). Within these boxes we hld our lives--sometimes literally with old photos and trinkets etc... I was thinking a while ago about how as we get older we have a lot more boxes. So in working through this one piece thinking about Enrico(we called him Henry) I saw this road for some reason and felt a need to put the three boxes above this road. Its not a finished piece, but it led me to this piece and I've sort of been consumed by this in my free time. In thinking about Henry I also remembered his drawing of three nails. This drawing back when I was learning to draw was very important to me. I found myself using the nails to support things like fruit to a wall(long story, but I drew endlessly fruit nailed to my studio wall back then).
Then I had a brief discussion with a student of mine who was using money in one of his pieces and I asked 'ever try to drive a nail through a penny?' So felt a need to try it myself fearing it might be somewhat dangerous! I drove through fairly easy actually. I had been photographing this one banana peel and I drove the nail through the penny on the same board and suddenly had new wrinkle on that piece. When I made the piece with the boxes and the road I played around with decorative borders and the next thing I saw was this banana peel becoming a figure on the road. My mind began spinning with how I felt this became symbols for many many things. I then created this sort of parade of them, perhaps a platoon, perhaps just past memories. I tried to even put myself in the composition but felt ultimately that I wasn't needed.
I think the road imagery might be a bit cliche' and over used, but its something that led to one thing and then another and I've got this whole idea working out now that may or may not go somewhere. We'll see.