DAVID BRASHEAR

In the 19th century, iron and steel began to be incorporated into the anatomical composition of buildings, pushing building facades beyond structural support and more independently into the realm of artistic composition.  This artistic expression was first rendered in stone and masonry, following tradition, but in the 20th century moved in the direction of metals and glass.

My Architexture project has explored the aesthetic interaction of light, color, material, and shadowing on building facades.  There is an inherent geometry and a rhythm embedded within many building "skins," and when isolated within a photograph a slice of a façade can be an abstract expression of our modern environment.  The visual qualities of metal, paint, stone and glass vary greatly, and can change substantially due to lighting, reflectivity, and coloring.

When I attempt to create a work to add to the Architexture effort, I completely and intentionally eliminate all other visual clues.  There is never a streetscape, and rarely even a touch of human or natural life.  My goal is an abstraction - an interpreted tribute to the creative art of detailing practiced by the architect, the manufacturer, and the building trades that come together in the installation.  I attempt to animate the surface of the building in a way that captures a moment in time.

There is a reductive beauty in black and white photography, a level of simplicity that makes the focal point of an image all the more powerful and compelling.  At night, when the background in a photograph can be reduced to a solid, black color field, there is a special opportunity to draw out the intricacies of the subject, which floats in the image as a highlight.

When I studied night photography at Columbia, my professor implored us to shoot at dusk, so that we could capture the effects of both artificial lighting and the waning of the natural light.  At that special moment, controlling for the brightness of artificial light sources would be less problematic.

Unfortunately, family duties often meant that taking pictures at dusk wasn't an option.  I tended to have more free time later in the evening, and when I ventured out into the deep night, the challenge of the darkness, and the necessity to control the distortion that artificial light can cause, became very interesting to me.  And so, my portfolios were usually comprised of images set in the black of the night.

I greatly enjoy dragging my cameras and tripod around at later hours, and have done so in many cities.  In my Deep Night project, my goal is to capture images that reflect the life of the night, the sculptural beauty of that which we have made, and the breadth of economic activity in the United States.

Our world is a complex layering of textures and patterns, colors and light, clarity and haze, and shapes and forms. What we see is highly dependent on how we are looking. And as we probe and consider, we can often perceive something that is entirely different than how it may first appear.

I am deeply drawn to perspective angles, and often seek an accentuated vanishing point in my photography. And I am strongly influenced by the haunting images of Edward Hopper and Giorgio de Chirico - their use of empty spaces and shadows are always in my creative mix.

In my Abstractions project, I seek that which is not primary. I am looking for a piece - a part - of a larger whole, that when separated, becomes something different. And when I find it, when I find that special component or angle, I am able to create a work that suggests a separation from photography, and a move in the direction of a different form of two-dimensional art.

Parking I is probably my personal favorite - of all that I have created. It hangs in my office - across from the place where I work. I can see it every time I look up.