Artist Statement - Glenn Guy
Artist Statement illustrated with this majestic photo from Huangshan Mountain, China.
An Artist Statement is the ideal vehicle by which a creative person can outline their particular arts practice, the medium or mediums with which they work, the subjects and themes they explore and the motivations that move them forward.
I’m a creative photographer with over 40 years experience in the photography industry. I’ve worked in a range of positions and explored a variety of subjects, genres and themes along by own creative journey.
Like most folks, I initially moved from one subject and location to another in a mostly intuitive manner. These days I’m more selective and often undertake photography projects or expeditions with a specific outcome in mind.
It’s often appropriate to produce a range of Artist Statements, based on the specific project or exhibition in question. But I also think it’s worthwhile to invest your time crafting a primary Artist Statement that will help you clarify the fundamental themes, concerns and motivations that underpin your own artistic practice.
I’ve included my own primary Artist Statement in the hope that it helps you better understand the process and, ideally, encourage you to write your own.
Not only will it act as a mirror looking back on where you’ve come from, but it will also be a window to help you identify, plan out and approach your next photography projects with certainty and confidence.
Adversity Is The Great Teacher
I believe that we learn more about ourselves through adversity and that paradise and hope are both earthly notions, which we carry with us, wherever we go.
The emergence of science as the new god of modern, western culture has resulted in our society abandoning the age of faith and, as a consequence, separated us from the importance of ritual and myth.
These changes have challenged our traditional belief system and, as a consequence, our connection with the eternal has suffered, as has our ability to unite our outer reality with our inner self.
The Artists Journey
It might be that hope exists only in the journey where, in the beginning, all is possible: every aspect, every dream.
With the destination subordinate to the journey, the search for meaning is a continuous process.
Photos tell your life’s story. Warm light and lupins, Tekapo, New Zealand.
Photographer As Story Teller
To see the world through the camera is a uniquely personal experience.
My role as a photographer is to communicate and I am unafraid to show my love for that which I photograph.
As storyteller I produce images where subjects, existing simultaneously as character and co-author, inhabit the world as whole, independent beings in a world of perpetual light.
Working within a narrative tradition I endeavour to discover a poetic thread in which to house a feeling or experience that would otherwise be lost or assigned to the vagaries of memory.
The process can be summarized as follows:
Preserve The Moment
To utilize my camera and associated photography processes to visualize and render these scenes poised, in all their complexities, between one moment and the next.
This process allows me to make metaphors from metamorphosis.
To record, for posterity, and to convey the magic of the moment outward to a wider audience.
Revere What Lies Beyond
To make sense of the world by evoking a higher truth through the telling of a story about the beauty that exists on the edge of our understanding.
Act By Making Art
To experience much of the beauty and diversity of the world and its peoples and then to translate my emotional response from feelings into form.
Yield to the Experience
To gain a better understanding of the world in which I live by immersing myself into the landscapes and cultures that exist beyond my normal, everyday experiences.
The Human Experience and beyond. Light rays illuminate the landscape in Iceland.
The Human Experience and Beyond
My photos deal with what it is to be human.
They have helped me understand my own personal journey and to resonate that outwards into the poetry of the everyday and beyond, towards that certain inner beauty found in simple things.
Through the production of a living diary this process of photographic documentation has allowed me to record my own life’s history.
To live the life I dream and to share that dream, my vision of the world, is the ultimate realization.
