"Shifting Shapes" opens December 4, 2007 and runs through January 14, 2008. “Shifting Shapes” is a selection of large format prints from artist
Margaret Warren’s most recent on-going photographic projects, “The Porsche Junkyard Series” and “Mind Talk”. Warren’s work has never
before been seen in Pensacola in this scale.
With the Junkyard Series, Warren explores a junkyard in Northwest Florida filled with (mostly) Porsche sports cars. Winged horses, birds,
skeletons and faces are just a few of the magical characters she has found in the twisted layers of paint, metal and rust.
In her series, “Mind Talk”, Warren’s photographic subjects come from her own
carefully constructed and improvised layers of light, fluid, people, paint and objects.
The Wright Place is located at 80 East Wright Street Pensacola, FL 32501.
For more information, you can contact Margaret at (850) 324-1928 or e-mail her at: mm@carmapro.com.
Influenced by the Surrealist photographer, Clarence John Laughlin, the show, “Shifting Shapes” is a selection of large format prints from two of my most recent on-going photographic projects, “The Porsche Junkyard Series” and “Mind Talk”. I began shooting the junkyard pieces in January 2006. Located in a Northwest Florida junkyard, these man-made trophies have become canvases for abstractions made of rust, corrosion and decay. In the twisted layers of paint and metal I have found faces, winged horses, birds and skeletons emerging like shape shifters from another dimension. I gravitate towards symbols hidden in my imagination, illustrating the magic of the work of nature over time.
“Mind Talk”, by contrast, involves my own constructions of layers of people, fluids, paint, transparencies and objects which I then photograph. The shooting process itself reveals ideas from my subconscious in the shapes of the subjects I choose to manipulate. As if I am in an improvised dance with the light and camera, I add and subtract elements as I listen carefully to my inner dialog. The work with live models is truly a collaborative effort - especially the work done with other artists as we play with the elements at hand.
With both of these series, the editing process is just as critical to the work as is the actual shooting. I spend a great deal of time in the review of the results of a photographic session and often go back to the same elements, refining the composition sometimes repeatedly until I achieve the aesthetic I’m after.
I intentionally avoid the use of the computer for all but the most basic editing tasks. The images have been output to archival inkjet prints via a computer, but none have been digitally manipulated beyond settings for matching printer output to the original source. The photographs were mostly shot with 35 mm film cameras (Nikon F and FM) and some with various digital cameras (Nikon D50 and 5400).