Artists "Review" Artists: Steven Alexander on Mark L. Power

The Artists "Review" Artists Project was launched on June 30, 2008.  Below is a "review" of Mark L. Power's work, Untitled, written by Steven Alexander.  Mark provided the second jpeg, an image of Untitled, as well as a brief response to Steven's "review."

Mark currently resides in Silver Spring, MD, and Steven lives in Dalton, PA.

If you would like to participate in this project, please email me at jtkirkland [at] gmail [dot] com.

Untitled
digital photograph
16" x 20"
2008

The "Review"

This image raises questions -- is it "nature photography", or is the primary concern with formal elements? Does the subject have significance beyond its formal properties? Why would someone choose to make this photograph?
 
It is interesting as a piece of virtual texture, the low contrast giving vague hints of deep surface fissures and layers of substance. The bit of concentrated light in the center reveals dynamic organic formations, and a silvery glow that filters out toward the edges. There is ambiguity in the relatively flat space being depicted, the darker brown configurations at the top and bottom reading as either on top or behind the lighter gray formations. This ambiguity combined with the oblique vantage point gives the image a floating, disorienting, quality that is held in check by the intersecting horizontal and vertical movement of the formations.
 
If the subject has any significance, I would assume it is metaphorical -- maybe a reference to a broader internal reality, but I don't find such a reference to be at all clear or even implied. I guess my feeling is that the photograph is a bit prosaic, sort of deadpan, and not really rich enough visually or conceptually to hold my interest for very long. The question remains of the photographer's intentions.

By Steven Alexander

Untitled
digital photograph
16" x 20"
2008

The Response

No quarrel with Steven’s opinions, although I think those the questions he poses in his first paragraph are up to him, the reviewer, to answer, although I suppose he does that indirectly in the following text. Also, I question the value in any review of a prolonged physical description. My feeling is let the image speak in its own ‘language’ which is not verbal. On the other hand, there are certain esthetic qualities connected with the description, ‘dynamic organic’; ambiguity; ‘floating’ and ‘disoriented’ that arise out of the detailed description which I wish Steven had pursued in the next paragraph a bit more; it would justify bringing up those qualities in the first place.  But I understand him not doing that if the photograph failed to hold his interest. As to intent, I don’t find I need to know that when interrogating a work of art. Intent is usually a private matter and of not much relevance unless the artist explicitly brings it to our attention in a statement.  I could go on but I’m over my word limit!

By Mark L. Power

Previous "Reviews":
Pam Farrell on Ken Weathersby
Paula McCullough on Aric Calfee
Lee Gainer on Leigh Waldron-Taylor
Aric Calfee on Paula McCullough
Matthew Ballou on Heather Levy
Giovanni Garcia-Fenech on TJ Norris
TJ Norris on Giovanni Garcia-Fenech
Susan Tolbert on Mary Klein
Heather Levy on Gail Vollrath
Sharon Butler on Matthew Ballou
Mark L. Power on Steven Alexander

Comments

[pam farrell]

Congrats to both Stephen and Mark for creating an interesting dialog about these pieces.

I love all the questions that the work evoked in Stephen; there is a dialectic reflective of arguments and ideas in the wider art community about photography that has been present for as long as there have been photographs.

I find that Mark responded not in a defensive tone, but rather indicating his various positions when it comes to his work. One could almost extract an artist's statement from his response.

I personally find the photos ripe with metaphor and would love to use them as source material for paintings. In fact, I wish they were paintings...but that's just my bias.

JT...I hope you are finding this endeavor of yours all that you wanted it to be. I am truly enjoying reading the reviews and responses, and have been learning much.

[MOR]

It seems to me that the reviewer is getting at the question of the light in these photographs... First, are they altered images that have been manipulated? If not, they have an incredible flatness to them - they appear at first glance as images taken with a point and shoot camera in which the flash has washed out all the depth and color in the subject. But could this be the very intention of these photographs?

It is interesting to present images of deepness, and darkness, so overcome with light and two-dimensionality. And perhaps that's what this photographer is doing with these "abstractions" as he called them.

I wonder - what is it about these images that the photographer finds so captivating?

[zipthwung]

its hard to take a picture of a cave with a flash (the light doesn;t reach the depths and it blows out the foreground).

I'm guessing there was a light or a sophisticated flash.

No lights set up in the background for indirect lighting like in a natl geo image.

The colors are not saturated.

There is a confluence of many textures, each testament to years of water deposits.

No, its just a cave to me, though when I was caving the weight of the rock was palpable.

[c.p.]

Zip, I thought you would never show up! Right, the technical!
Photographers would usually hit that point first, because it informs all that we are able to read in the image.
Steven examines the photo image as if it were a painting, and I like that. And Zip comes on board and starts talking about the setting up of light, what brushes the photographer used, I mean light sources, bulbs--how these formal effects are achieved, not so much dealing with what is in the cave [though there is a fine job done in preparing that], but more what resides within the maker of the cave, the drawing of expertise that goes into a photograph.