April 2, 2020

William Crawford — Forensic Foraging Photography

Artist’s Statement: The trite, trivial and mundane are often dismissed by today’s technology driven photographers. Images shot can unlock the beauty and intrinsic value hidden in most everyday things. Thus, an old fractured glass window found on a wrecked desert shack might better be presented as a compelling image. Such a transformational presentation can be achieved by applying basic photographic techniques: framing, lighting, coloration, saturation, contrast, etc. This precise application of seminal tenets can often transform the mundane into something pleasing. This process forms the essence of Forensic Foraging. Photographers today possess a plethora of powerful technical tools. High resolution sensors, potent post processing software, and cameras with such jacked up processors that they could, in a pinch, support the governmental operations of a small city. Many camera images today all but surpass the human capacities…

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March 5, 2020

Katherine Coons: An Autobiographical Art Journey

Posted by Mike Rochester in Fine Art

Artist’s Statement: “My work embraces several concepts simultaneously. The images in this proposal portray an autobiographical picture of my life, my travels, and the places that I have inhabited. I make creations that fit my mood, energy, and temperament. My inspiration comes from the nature that surrounds me, and I am deeply influenced by differences of culture, color, and the diversity of attitudes and ideas gleaned from these aspects. Numerous travels abroad to Europe and Asia have greatly influenced my artworks, having spent much time observing different peoples and their cultures. Documenting my daily thoughts in sketchbooks, and subsequent ruminations on, and drawings from my daily excursions evolve into greater arenas of art making. Collected curios from these places are infused into my mixed media artworks and installations. My creations are derived from these experiences, while my art exhibitions illustrate these memories.” “I am greatly inspired by large, sprawling landscapes such as those of Alaska where I lived for seventeen years. I describe the paintings that evolve from these landscapes as gestural, fleeting sensations of transitory time and place. I would describe my work as expressionistic. Newer paintings include…

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February 6, 2020

Brett Stout – Deep, Dark Paintings

Posted by Mike Rochester in Fine Art, Member Writing & Art

All images copyright, Brett Stout. *** Brett Stout is a 40-year-old artist and writer. He is a high school dropout and former construction worker turned college graduate and paramedic. He creates mostly controversial work usually while breathing toxic paint fumes from a small cramped apartment known as “The Nerd Lab” in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. His work has appeared in a vast range of diverse media, from international indie zines like Litro Magazine UK to Brown University. This is his first feature in The Fictional Café.

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October 27, 2019

Mind-Melding with Lew Holzman’s Art

Posted by Jack B. Rochester in Fine Art, Member Writing & Art, Writing

We’re pleased to showcase Lew’s unique expression of the intersection of photography and painting once again. His work first appeared here, and was featured again in our just-published anthology, The Strong Stuff: The Best of Fictional Café, 2013-2017. Artist’s Statement There are many beautiful or interesting moments that one can capture but we’ve seen many of them too many times. I always attempt to avoid the clichéd. My work is transformational so that we might look again and see things somehow differently. I am trying to blur the distinction between photography and painting with influences mainly from late 19th and 20th-century art movements including Surrealism, Dadaism, and abstract expressionism. *** I have always created either word images in my poetry or visual images. Digital photography expanded my horizons and my transformations transformed me into a…

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September 21, 2019

“My Year in Art,” by Steve Sangapore

Posted by Mike Rochester in Fine Art, Guest Posts, Member Writing & Art, Writing

After graduating from college in 2013 with a degree in art, I spent the next five years maintaining a sharp focus on honing my craft as a painter. Countless studio hours were matched with even more time pursuing opportunities, schmoozing with gallerists, and making my presence known within Boston’s, and the greater Northeast’s, vibrant art communities. While each year yielded great leaps in my technical dexterity and academic proficiency as a painter, the art was virtually devoid of the most important component that separates art from craft . . . and I just couldn’t see it. Or, perhaps I could see it—I just didn’t want to. The debates between, “what is good art” and “what is or can be art” have been raging on for years – particularly since the mid-19th century with the birth…

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William Crawford — Forensic Foraging Photography

Katherine Coons: An Autobiographical Art Journey

Brett Stout – Deep, Dark Paintings

Mind-Melding with Lew Holzman’s Art

“My Year in Art,” by Steve Sangapore

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