Embracing the Accidental

March 5, Inauguration 9 pm

Galeria del Teatro Peon Contreras

Embracing the Accidental

"People often ask of my photographs, “are they paintings”?  It is a valid question because my work  explores the nature of reality.

I seek out surfaces with painterly qualities:  a section of a ladder encrusted with layer upon layer of paint dripped from a painter's careless brush; the slapdash application in broad strokes of paint on the rusted carcass of a car; the fiberglass hulls of boats, scratched and deeply scored by time.  Often I combine them with the structure of classical landscapes whose foreground, middle ground and background further suggest a painting.

My work explores the construction of an image through the use of selective focus. Its use of metaphor and symbols – some personal, some archetypal -  encourages the observer to use his imagination.

Sometimes an observer will discern a landscape; at other times my compositions are clearly abstract and it surprises many to learn that the “real” object behind the photograph is  what most would dismiss as junk or unsightly accidents.

This, of course, brings us back to the nature of reality. Is it personal, or are there some common truths?
We question the nature of our perceptions."

barbara mcclatchie andrews
march 2010