statement
"It connects dots in a world that I cannot always connect in my own life."
Factoid: The piece "A Love Supreme" a portrait of John Coltrane, is collaged exclusively with nature photos like tree bark, leaves and even dirt textures. No Coltrane photos were used and she did it with her fingers on a non-painting app on her phone! In order to collage bits & pieces of texture photos it takes hundreds of images and 20-30 hours a week for many months. See it under Mobile Art - Digital Figurative
The mobile art category in my case, is abstract digital collages with bits and pieces of original photos made into paintings on an iPhone or iPad using a non-painting application that is optimized for collaging. Typically each piece contains a minimum of 30 photos.
I take the photos when I'm able to go outside and am looking for interesting textures like peeling paint or an artistic line such as cracks in the cement as well as colors such as a faded color on an old building. I am also looking for textures that embody a certain place, city or idea ie: New Orleans series.
I began collaging on my phone eight years ago to enable me to stay creative despite being bedridden or confined to a dark house most days.
For me, creating abstracts blurs lines and merges objects, providing a poetic portal to altered states of consciousness. I do abstracts to get different perspectives and to make sense of things. This process allows me to enter a world that gives me a sense of empowerment and to attempt to convey suffering or a brief moment of normalcy.
In a broader sense, I am interested in how perspectives change and in transcendence. Questions like what makes the artist and the viewer evolve in terms of perspective? In India, the term "Rasa" is used to describe the "taste" or flavor of art forms that is evoked. Is it just information that evolves this flavor or taste or is there more going on behind the scenes and does it follow a map such as philosopher, Ken Wilber's integral theory of spiral dynamics (AQUAL).
I've had ten chronic conditions for the last twenty years. Mostly unaided by medications, due to multiple severe allergies. Daily migraines are the most disabling pain I experience and I often incorporate this into my work.
I am inspired by many artists including; Mark Bradford, Veronica Cay, Frida Kahlo as well as Calder, Serra, Chagall and Rothko. I am also inspired by Ken Wilber.
Mobile devices are the perfect tool for those of us limited by our physical bodies and bedridden most of the time. I am exploring the boundaries of this technology and one day, hope to expand it to non-digital collage paintings.
Factoid: Laria creates Process Videos of her work so you can see the process in action. See the "Process Videos" or check her out on instagram @LariaPhotography or her new account @LariaSaundersArt
STATEMENT FOR OLDER ALTERNATIVE PHOTOGRAPHY -"DESPITE THE PAIN" - A 5 YEAR COLLECTION OF ABSTRACT PHOTOGRAPHY
I capture with the moving camera and then enhance in Photoshop. The evolution of perspective from the individual to the cosmic. Five years, five collections to form one snapshot.
When the camera moves, the world becomes a large palette of infinite colors, line and geometry. These ‘snapshots’ start off as swabs of earth components; it’s textures, color, patterns and movement and they evolve with every year, adding greater complexity until a final “Creation” series.
After years of isolation due to crippling physical pain and over eight months of hospitalization, I emerged from a dark cave and witnessed a world throbbing with light and color. I could no longer do normal photography.
This collection attempts to reflect the microcosm and macrocosm. The journey does this by mirroring and taking inspiration from two paths.
The Monarch butterfly from cocooned (New Papillon Series) migration (Migration Series), mating (Union Series), conception (Conception Series) and offspring (Creation Series).
Mirroring my own life from isolation to emergence then from travel (terrain subgroup) and finally to love (see subgroups below).
The second inspiration mirrors the evolution of the universe from it’s seed state of repose to the early chaos and finally to the life-forming creations.
Both paths declare the successful story of creation despite the intensity of the journey.
The final series leaves abstraction and enters our world of creation to show the offspring phase in the evolution of the Monarch and the universe. This series uses a single image from a mountain, a patch of dirt or small section of a muddy stream and with a stitching technique, duplicates it.
The evolution of perspective from the individual to the cosmic. Five years, five collections to form one snapshot.
COLLECTION TITLES INFO:
DESPITE THE PAIN – Series/Subgroups
NEW PAPILLON Cocooned Emergence Culmination stages
MIGRATION Stirrings Evolution Terrain stages
UNION Co-Creation Forging Emergent stages
CONCEPTION Conception Incubation Creation stages
CREATION Muddy Stream Water Mountains and Bushes Trees and Dirt
Please note: *The Creation series (final series) uses no digital photography, kaleidoscopic methods or microscopic imaging to create the patterns seen and the same image is replicated. Simple processing techniques are implemented like dodging and burning plus color enhancing in order to accent the intricate symmetry, geometry and archetypal components that already exist in the original nature captured.