ARTIST STATEMENT

I transform photographic images into abstract “paintings”, creating new visual expressions exciting the imagination and inviting viewers into transformative dimensions of consciousness.  New techniques allow me to use my experience of 30+ years of film and digital work selected for color, tone, texture, rhythm, and movement rather than subject matter.

Like an alchemist, I seek to transform images into abstract expressions bearing more resemblance to paintings and sculpture than photographs.  While a few of my works contain remaining aspects and forms of the original image, I always seek to transform them with a new sense of meaning.

My work blurs the lines between photography and other art forms, demonstrating that art lies in the image, not the medium.  While the images have a personal meaning to me, my hope is that viewers will have their own sense of visual, emotional, and spiritual response to them.

John Anderson is a retired Lutheran Minister who served for more than 24 years as director of pastoral care at Memorial Health University Medical Center in Savannah, Georgia.  John previously served as staff chaplain at M.D. Anderson Hospital in Houston, Texas and as Director of Pastoral Care at Diagnostic Center Hospital, also in Houston.

John’s passion for photographic art spans more than thirty years.  His early work is primarily nature and wildlife images.  Recently, he radically shifted his passion to the creation of unique abstract images bearing little or no resemblance to the original photographs from which they are created. 

John’s work was selected by the Telfair Museum in Savannah, Georgia for their 2007 art show, and appeared in three additional one man shows in 2008, including a month long show at Dimensions Gallery in Savannah.

Allison Hersh wrote of the artist’s work in The Savannah Morning News (November 9, 2008):

“He severs the image’s connection to the external world, redefining the visual matrix through a creative process he describes as painting with pixels.”