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Chris Coffey
Artist Statement
Chris Coffey
As a young man I wandered the green spaces/parks near my home as well as the factories and rail yards. Both taught me about light and the effect the seasons have on it — valuable currency for picture making. I wandered with any destination in mind but it’s possible that I found a version of me that would not have been possible on any other path. The camera didn’t take me outdoors — the outdoors took me to the camera as a way of telling others the story. This education was augmented via travel by rail to New Mexico, home of my mother’s family. From the train whole worlds were made visible, the sky so much larger than any painting or photograph, human presence right-sized in relation to the natural world, and I consider the window of the train my first camera.
Later the camera was added to my wandering and though the results were wide of the mark I was not discouraged. Decades later a couple of beginning darkroom classes introduced me to that magic that occurs when a blank piece of paper comes to life in the developer tray. Dedicated study of lots of photographs (still a ritual for me) taught me what good photographs are, resulting in what I refer to as a visual literacy. Making (and throwing away) lots of prints and the study under master print makers educated me to what was possible emotionally in the fine print.
Experience revealed that my landscapes and man made subjects are really the same — only the approach is different. While landscape work demands that I find order in the incredible chaos that is nature, the built environment requires that I discover the disorder in what was designed to be orderly. Both require command of the “supreme instant”, that moment when the light is like no other time. Human made subjects introduced me to geometry, the first but not the only non-verbal language I would learn.
Over the years I have been asked one question repeatedly; “what is your favorite picture?” The quick answer has always been “the next one”, but really, the ones I value most are the images made of something unnoticed before and now made visible by training the eye.
September 2023