Art Statement:
In 1913, American Photographer Alvin Langdon Coburn, said it best when he asked, "why should not the camera artist break away from the worn out conventions ... and claim the freedom of expression which any art must have to be alive?"
Over the past 38 years, Joseph Robinson has created fine artwork through photography. His abstract and dreamscape imagery is closely aligned to the history of modern painting. Instead of using a brush,the artist uses the camera to equate itself with a new way of seeing. Although he utilizes photographic techniques to realize his creative expression, he alters the objective world like Modernists have done with paint brushes and canvas. Each piece essentially is a unique moment in time and space that cannot be recreated.
His methodology consists of focusing in on light sources, locations and colors which are then interpreted into a poetic visual dance. The outcome is a personally expressed definition of time and space.
Delving into the world of Joseph Robinson you begin to see his inspiration from the works of Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Wassily Kadinsky, Man Ray, Claude Monet, Ezra Pound, Alexandr Mikhailovich Rodchenko, Lazlo Moholy-Nagy and allusions to numerous others.
Description of Artwork:
This fine art photography series is titled “Windows of the Universe”. Each image is produced on the highest quality Cibachrome prints in a limited edition series of 12 numbered and signed by the artist.
The artworks are approximately 4’ x 7’ and vary slightly according to the proportions of each image.
Each print is back laminated to an aluminum slab which is 1/8” thick and face laminated with a protective and durable UV film and finally mounted onto a 2” birch frame. Each piece takes approximately one month to complete. Cibachrome prints last for centuries, whereas as other photographic mediums begin to show signs of wear within the first decade.
Pricing has been established over his career by major private collectors some of whom have multiple pieces. The retail sales price is $30,000.00 each.
Technical Description:
CIBACHROME was developed by the Ciba-Geigy Corporation of Switzerland in the 1960's. It is a positive to positive color printing process (in contrast to the more traditional photograph which starts out as a negative and then is turned into a positive) which takes a transparency and creates a positive print image while retaining a first generation sharpness, without the need for an internegative. Other processes, such as negative printing offered by Kodak, Fuji and others, are often referred to as chromogenic processes. These processes use color dyes that are in the film chemistry. These color dyes then interact with the developer to form a color image on the paper. With cibachrome, the dyes are built into the paper and are bleached out selectively in the processing. These dyes are also called azo dyes and they are noted for their vivid color and vastly superior archival qualities.