All Things Are Abstract Until We Give Them Meaning

Seeing is one of the five senses that enables us to “make sense” of the world; it begins when the light leaves its source, falling on an object and bouncing off it, to then enter into the eye through the pupil and arrive at the retina, where its turned into electrical signals that travel to the brain to be collected, analyzed, and translated; the process of assigning meaning to what is seen.

In the camera the process is similar; the film is the retina of the camera capturing the light coming through its pupil -the lensduring a timed exposure to record an image. The film is merely a light sensitive plane that captures what light is coming through the lens; the lens is then the mediator between the reality we see and want to capture and the film, it translates the raw light, focuses it, and composes the image.

If we are to remove the lens, the film is then able to record the raw characteristics of the light itself rather than what it is bouncing off of, its raw color and composition; liberating it to choreograph its spectrum of color upon the plane of the film unbounded by the transliteration of the lens, resulting in abstract photographs that capture the light truthful in its manifestation. If an analogy is to be drawn, it is that of the conscious and the subconscious, our innermost, most private emotions and ideas are abstract; a form of existence that has no words (language) assigned to it; incommunicable just yet.

Language -like the lens between the light and the film- gives meaning, it creates a passage between the realm of the abstract subconscious and the high definition realm of the conscious, a two-way communication channel between the inside and the outside.

If we are to go back to a time before meanings were constructed in our brains, as enfants without the lens of language, seeing the world minus the meanings assigned to it; forms, colors, and textures, maybe images similar to these are what we saw.

Abstraction in art allows for a direct communication between the subconscious, freedom from meanings imposed by perception, preconceived ideas, or cultural upbringing; an uninhibited child play, allowing for a true expression of the self, and extending an invitation to the viewer to participate in playful -unrestricted- creation of new personal meanings.

In this project, the light is the master abstract artist, and these photographs its body of work that puts forth a representation of its nature alternative to our constructed perceptions, and invites the viewer a step deeper into seeing, where language perhaps cannot function.

2023