caponwrit

These surfaces were created by nature; a portion of them is beyond me and
beckons me to expand my sensibilities. Yet the surfaces in these pictures are not
untouched. I have altered them; by inclusion and exclusion with the device of the
picture frame, by further eliminations from and additions to what remains within
the picture frame, by changing proportion, by creating rorshachs and placing their
midpoints, by orchestrating hue, tint, value and saturation. I find this a most
curious collaboration with the hand of nature.
Every photograph or drawing is such a collaboration. Both modes of
expression are subject to their unique processes. A photographer apprehends his
subject (a process of recognition and capture) a painter intends his work (a process
of conception and rendition). In general one is usually thought to be more objective
the other more subjective, though it is not necessarily so. Yet both modes remain
processes of discovery, a revelation of both the internal and the external. The
balancing point between these two modes in this collaboration is one of the things
that makes this work so unusual. It occupies a curious space between photography
and painting. It is a perceptual hybrid.
In all of my work there is an obsession with looking at, through and into
surfaces. A fortuneteller might divine meaning from the world by reading tea
leaves, bones, runes or entrails scattered across a surface. Similarly I have been
engaged in a process of self-discovery and revelation. Looking at images offers a
unique opportunity to see the artist revealed and the world interpreted. Looking at
the surfaces of nature yields similar opportunities. One asks the question, "What do
these lines, shapes, proportions, patterns and rhythms reveal about the world and
their creator?" Reading the face of nature fills one with wonder.

Biography

John Paul Caponigro was born in Boston, Massachussetts in 1965 and raised in
Santa Fe New Mexico. He studied photography with his father, Paul Caponigro.
Attending Yale University and the University of California at Santa Cruz he earned
his BA in both Art and Literature in 1988, moving to Cushing, Maine in 1989. In
1992, as part of a year long residency at the Center for Creative Imaging in
Camden, Maine, Caponigro began working with the computer. It has become a
meeting place for the variety of disciplines he practices; drawing, painting,
calligraphy and both traditional and alternative photographic processes. His work is
exhibited and collected internationally in private and public collections alike.
One of CanonÕs Explorers of Light, Caponigro teaches workshops
internationally and writes regularly for View Camera, Camera Arts, and Photo
Techniques magazines. He has three books forthcoming; Dialogs, conversations
with and portraits of photographers; The Fine Art of Photoshop, a non-technical
technical manual; and Elemental, a monograph.