justin carruth

One year ago, I began experimenting with a new medium. Until now, I have predominately been a painter. Photography has given me the opportunity to capture moments I couldn’t express through drawing or painting. The darkroom process has become sacred to me. It is a way of giving a space to images of places and people to whom I have been connected for years. These photographs are very personal and important to my development as an artist, and a human, because this process has taught me to explore new forms of expression and take on new challenges.

I intuitively selected photographs for this show from over eight hundred negatives. However, it’s not because I particularly like them more than others. They give a more congruent, almost cinematic, depiction of one facet of my life. Though the over all meaning is very ambiguous, the emotional content resonates loud and clear within me. This is only one chain of events, one story.

justin carruth...october 2006

Ultimately, I am inspired by the complexity of the human form. Casual, social, intimate, or otherwise a singularity in physicality and gesture varies within their contexts. But what truly interests me are the subtle oddities that are so easily missed: a person simply turning or a hand gesture. At first I was only half-conscious of these movements and unsure how to relate the feeling to other people. It wasn’t until I discovered the works of other photographers that I began to think it was possible. I realized that the brevity in physical human motion/minutiae is the perfect subject for a camera. My photographs compartmentalize and separate parts of the body from the whole because I am attracted to the strangeness in that separation.

I attended a black and white photography class for a semester of formal training. Since, I have built a darkroom and have been working privately with other silver printers, learning this classic, timeless art.

The situations that contain these subtle curiosities lend themselves to prints that are emotionally individual. Experiencing these moments are my inspiration, and every great while I am able to capture them.

c.w. cannon... october 2006