“A secret about a secret”

© Karen Roehl 2010

I was recently at an art opening of my friend, the painter Karen Roehl (Ice Cube Gallery, Denver http://www.icecubegallery.com/i/Current_Exhibit.html ). Karen is an abstract expressionist painter. Her work deals with traditional issues of the genre, but her work is fresh and dynamic and the show was inspirational. Karen’s large abstract works got me thinking of art, photography and as usual, black and white photography.

Diane Arbus said, “A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know.”

Photographs are by nature an abstract representation, an interpretation of a moment. That is what makes photography so wonderful. In a photograph a little girl becomes an angel, a foggy morning a tale of mystery, a shadow a memory. All these are as Arbus states, “secrets about a secret,” images full of meaning to the viewer but of an uncertain reality and origin. Like my friend’s abstract paintings a photograph’s meaning may have nothing to do with the artist’s intention, however, this makes that image no less wonderful.

© Francine Zaslow 2010

Even in representational photographs, such as a recent exhibit by Francine Zaslow at the Griffin Museum’s gallery at DSI ( http://digitalsilverimaging.blogspot.com/2010/09/circles-of-life-images-by-francine.html ) , the artist takes something familiar and transforms it into something else. Zaslow’s black and white images of food render eggs, fish. and even pig’s feet, in a sculptural manner. Simple foods become monuments of form, light, and texture. The images are of food but their delight is in the representation of them as objects of beauty. It is my understanding that these images were originally produced to illustrate a cook book. In the gallery the images take on a life of their own and become something all together different. Again Arbus is right, “The more it tells you the less you know.”

I am going to try and hold on to these musings the next time I pick up my camera or paint brush. My thanks to Karen Roehl and Francine Zaslow for providing such excellent inspiration.