TOOK A PIC WITH LEAVES, GLUED A SKULL IN THE TREES: Jimmy Fountain and John Bowman

TOOK A PIC WITH LEAVES, GLUED A SKULL IN THE TREES

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JIMMY FOUNTAIN AND JOHN BOWMAN
October 15 – November 21
opening reception, Friday October 15, 6-9pm

In a first time collaboration, photographer Jimmy Fountain teams up with collage artist John Bowman to create a series of wild and weird images made from excised pieces of medium format digital photos. Low key humor pervades the work, building on a compositional format that subverts our immediate expectations while honoring the mixed media gods of yore.

The way it works is, John collages parts of photos that Jimmy takes. Then Jimmy rephotographs those collages and, in some instances, alters them digitally. It’s a game of tit for tat, where layers of action build while the image is increasingly galvanized into a single stratum. It’s tough to tell who did what, where the cut-and-paste happened, or when it was baked into the image permanently. It is quintessential collaboration, where two sensibilities meld, neutralizing authorship until all that remains is a pair of artists truly thinking as one.