About My Art - Artist Statement
About My Art - Artist Statement
John Morey Photography | Natural Fine Art Photographics & More
My craft has taken me on a transformative journey, from seeking ego-driven explorative adventure and rejuvenation, to that of contemplative presence, and self-discovery. Moving through the Arizona outback and beyond, I experienced the novelty of feeling awed, accomplished, and forever touched by natural scenes – editorially compelled to share. Inspired to capturing monumentally iconic settings of the West, as moments of primal beauty and harshness both epic and small, my work began to express how little difference there is between these opposing concepts. Realizing subtly simple lessons in Nature, I contemplated how those related to my life, my craft, and society at-large. The philosophy of this editorial-to-artist period is expressed in my “Monumental Icons Inspirations”, and my “Nature’s Timeless Tones in Monochrome” collections, which were driven by honoring the land’s Spirit, while producing an uncommon view – and feeling – of a nature scene. These works, framed by efforts to stand apart and matted with lessons learned, was the foundation of my work to come. I felt internal dualities pushing me and my art, yet also realized a need to slow down, not just capturing the moments, but also connecting with the land’s Spirit – living the moments and realizations to a richer and deeper experience!
The philosophy of my art and my relationship to it shifted. I found myself on an unexpected journey of healing through introspection, self-discovery, and enlightening self-fulfillment – learning about Self in ways hardly available in the concrete-wireless-hustle. Slowed down, humbled, and present to my inner-landscape, I found myself out there! Adventures turned to pilgrimages, questing from nature’s grandest and iconic cathedrals, to its most remote and unassuming chapels – each dedicated to the secular rites of nature, inviting all to stop with reverence – offering souls quiet permission to stir and opening conduits between us and Spirit! As an evolving artist, this Spirit is what I express in my “Realizations of Contemplation and Self-Discovery” collections, representing ways realizations are manifested in my life and art. I selected the word ‘realizations’ for its polysemic capacity to have multiple related meanings, merging both the act of becoming aware of perceptions in consciousness previously unavailable, like an epiphany, and the actualization of something desired coming true and manifested into being.
To compose my visions and curate my realizations in my collections, I embrace that as human beings we all have the same basic universal emotional feelings and needs, individually and in relationships, which we all share at one time or another – which connects us all! I bring humanness, personality, and emotional connection to my scenes and subjects, creating relatability and bridging the gap towards eliciting an emotional response, and perhaps questioning how we relate towards Self, others, and our worlds. I also use psychology of photography principals, creating cohesion between those realizations, the spirit of the landscapes and wildlife, and the connections to those scenes. I merge both approaches together with the elements that lend to emotional responses I wish to create in my art.
Sharing my art and soul, the reactions I intend to elicit are to stimulate the viewer to take their own journeys into Nature, feeling what is possible for themselves and the emotional needs they could scratch; learning about themselves, while also taking stewardship of our natural world. I also feel it preferential to lead viewers to a deeper level-of-thought, permitting their own mindful sides to vulnerably stir with their own lives and realizations in mind. Believing the adage, “A picture is worth a thousand words”, I desire each viewer’s unique self-response, yet I also desire behind the proverbial pen to aid towards that end.
These connections to the Spirit of Nature, and the experience of our realizations within and as part of it, are integrated inside us when we slow down, making the time and space to reflect upon them. We must protect the environments outside and within us, to heal and grow beyond our wounds, fears, and disconnections – as individuals and society. As I continue to re-invent myself, destroying ego in the process, I look forward to how the “Monumental Icons Inspirations”, “Nature’s Timeless Tones in Monochrome”, and all the “Realizations of Contemplation and Self-Discovery” collections will collide, and what new works emerge from our upheaval.
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