Pete Jackson:
Ultrawide
May 10 - June 2, 2007
Reception Thursday May 10, 7-9pm
Pete Jackson is a native of Northern Ireland who now works and resides in Los Angeles. The images for this exhibit are the result of the last 2 years work, where he brings his earlier experience photographing the overwhelming panoramic beauty of Ireland to focus on his extensive landscape photography in urban Southern California. The majority of his photos are produced in the digital format, and digital cameras enable him to utilize photographic techniques that would not be possible with film, such as Infrared & High Dynamic Range Images. As well, the digital darkroom gives him complete control over every aspect of producing the final image, offering us seamless and perfectly balanced artworks of uncanny beauty.
Stitching together multiple images he creates jaw-dropping super wide landscapes of Los Angeles from atop the hills of Griffith Park and other high elevation locations. By utilizing infrared techniques, new levels of clarity and definition are achieved. Subject matter far in the distance, or trees and foliage once subsumed by concrete, are now jumping out of the image quite vividly. With infrared the invisible becomes visible, and these photographs provide a vision of L.A. we would never see without the assistance of new technology in the hands of such a gifted and masterful image maker.
Pete Jackson is our best selling artist, a favorite with Los Angelinos and amongst collectors from as far as Hong Kong and the U.K.
Artist's Statement:
"The first time I visited Los Angeles, I was, like any other first time visitor flying into the city, struck by the enormous expanse of roads and buildings that comprise the Los Angeles basin. Having come from the comparatively minuscule country of Northern Ireland, it was this almost incomprehensibly vast urban vista that became the inspiration for much of my work.
For this series I ended up essentially making portraits of LA from different vantage points and perspectives. The magnificent urban sprawl serves as a perfect subject for my interest in ultra-wide panoramics, and by utilising specific digital photography techniques I endeavoured to reconceptualize my perception of this impressive city in my artistic exploration.
I feel this body of work evokes the extraneous, detached surrealism felt by visitors unaccustomed with such uncontrolled development, and highlights the innumerable structures and architectural intrusions emerging from the elemental landscape, and reveal man's resourceful and expansive influence on his environment.
A major part of my artistic direction comes from my avidity and fascination with infrared photography. Infrared radiation exists just beyond the visible part of the light spectrum and cannot be seen by the human eye. Infrared filters block out the visible spectrum entirely, allowing the camera, and the viewer, to see the world immersed in this mysterious, esoteric luminance. Organic materials, such as foliage or skin, take on a bright reflective translucence, water and skies absorb infrared rays rendering them with deep dark tones.
Whatever the reason, I developed an instant affinity with infrared light the first time I fitted an IR filter to the front of my camera. I found myself compelled by a curiousity to see the world beyond that of our normal visual domain, and by exceeding the boundaries of human vision into another realm, the resulting images conjure a strange and serene aesthetic quality harmonious to my artistic vision, whilst also producing a more balanced overall tonality between sky and earth, that would not be possible with conventional photography."
Pete Jackson 2007
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