Artist Spotlight

© Tierney Gearon

Today I am looking at four artists that construct photographic images in varying ways:  Tierney Gearon, Chris McCaw, Idris Khan, and Gregory Crewdson.  While all four work in very different visual manners, they create similar, constructed objects.  Gearon creates complex double exposures in camera, while Kahn digitally combines every image from a photographic series or pages from a book.  Crewdson creates exceedingly intricate setups that rival many film sets, and McCaw designs situations that allow the sun to physically burn a line through photographic paper.

© Chris McCaw

All photographs construct and these four artists seem acutely aware of their role in this process.  Utilizing traditional and digital processes freely, these artists do not claim or infer any notion of capturing or illustrating reality.  They create images that draw attention to the way they were made.

© Idris Khan

© Gregory Crewdson

In 2008, Redux Contemporary Art Center had an exhibition entitled “The Constructed Image.” Redux director Seth Curcio said the involved artists called “into question how truth is recorded and conveyed to the viewer through imagery, and the subsequent effect of constructed imagery in contemporary society.”  While the list of artists is different, the words are fitting for the artists we are looking at today.