LeAnne Hitchcock | Statements

Circus: Artist Statement

Circus is based on a single roll of film shot at the Barnum and Bailey circus in 1991. Inspired by Andy Warhol’s rarely seen Shadow Paintings, this new body of work uses shadows and image details; re-contextualizing them from the spectacle at the center of the ring to form a different visceral experience. The work utilizes the natural emotional reaction to color and darkness to emote individual responses.

The Desisive Moment: Artist Statement

While the title of this show plays on the groundbreaking images of Cartier-Bresson, this series addresses the theme of choice by coupling images from classic films, made with a homemade pinhole camera, and photographic color fields. The image of the film star has replaced that of the religious icon as the harbinger of moral dilemmas, and subsequently the subjects here are chosen at a moment that indicates a character’s conflict or revelation within a film plot. The contrasting color fields (derived from various subjects) are used to point to the elements of choice. As color has an emotional reality of its own, the viewer will be left with an impression based on individual color responses. The configurations are meant to allow the viewer to ‘enter’ the work as a person might pass through a doorway.

Landscape: Artist Statement

As a photographer, there comes a time when the landscape must be addressed as subject matter. The history of photography begins with the landscape and continues to be a force in the medium.

In this body of work the landscape is pushed into the abstract color field. Photographers can nod to painters such as Ad Rienhardt and Ellsworth Kelly and not be confined to the traditional language of the medium.