Photoshop Art

Every so often, I get in the mood to make some montages or collages in Photoshop. These are often archetypal artwork, visionary, even shamanic art, or surrealist as some prefer to name all such non-rational art. (I don't, but some do.)

I often do this in black and white, rather than in color, I'm not certain why. I shoot exclusively in digital color now, so all the source images are in color; but in compiling a new piece, I feel drawn to work in black and white. Plainly, I might be influenced by one of my acknowledged photography masters, Jerry Uelsmann. You know his work, even if you don't know his name; you have almost certainly seen it, or work inspired by it, on TV, or in advertising. It still blows my mind that he was doing these sorts of photomontages entirely in the darkroom, decades before the invention of Photoshop. I don't know that I could have done that; thank the gods I have Photoshop to aid me.

So, whenever I do a black and white surrealist montage, I always think of Uelsmann somewhere in the back of my mind. (Along with Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Minor White, and some few others.)

This is one aspect of my visual body of artwork that is visionary art, and openly so. Some of this work is also done in color. For example, the Spiral Dance series, which I hope to publish someday as a deck of cards for meditation. (Not a Tarot deck, but a deck of archetypes for contemplation, and for talking to one's own deeper, hidden selves.)

So, here's a couple of new pieces, along these lines. I'm in the mood to make more of these soon, too, so stay tuned.


Ocean Road


World Window